William I came to the Scottish throne in 1165 having just watched his predecessor Malcolm IV hand Northumbria back to Henry II under considerable pressure. These early pennies were struck before William's own catastrophic defeat at Alnwick in 1174, after which he was captured and forced to sign the Treaty of Falaise — effectively making Scotland a vassal state of England. The coinage itself predates that humiliation by a matter of months or years at most.
Cross-and-crosslets types of this period were produced at a small number of Scottish moneyer workshops, with dies frequently showing inconsistent workmanship relative to contemporary English issues.
William I came to the Scottish throne in 1165 having just watched his predecessor Malcolm IV hand Northumbria back to Henry II under considerable pressure. These early pennies were struck before William's own catastrophic defeat at Alnwick in 1174, after which he was captured and forced to sign the Treaty of Falaise — effectively making Scotland a vassal state of England. The coinage itself predates that humiliation by a matter of months or years at most.
Cross-and-crosslets types of this period were produced at a small number of Scottish moneyer workshops, with dies frequently showing inconsistent workmanship relative to contemporary English issues.