5 Shillings - William II

William II of Scotland — William III of England — had his Scottish coinage struck at the Edinburgh Mint under increasingly strained circumstances. The Scottish Privy Council was pushing hard for full monetary union with England throughout this period, a debate that would not be resolved until the Acts of Union in 1707, six years after William's death. These five shilling pieces circulated in a kingdom whose financial system was simultaneously collapsing under the disastrous Darien Scheme, the failed colonial venture that wiped out roughly a quarter of Scotland's liquid capital.