2 Pounds - Charles III Duchess of Hamilton; Silver Piedfort

The Duchess of Hamilton — Margaret Douglas, born 1515 — occupied one of the most precarious positions in Tudor politics, being both a niece of Henry VIII and a serious claimant to the English throne through her mother Margaret Tudor. She was imprisoned in the Tower of London three times, twice for clandestine marriages the Crown had not sanctioned. Her grandson was James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England, making her a direct ancestor of every British monarch since the union of the crowns.

Piedfort versions carry double the standard planchet thickness, a French minting tradition adopted by the Royal Mint for collector issues from the 1980s onward.