Rijksdaalder 'Leicesterrijksdaalder' 7 Provinces

The "Leicesterrijksdaalder" takes its name from Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, whose disastrous tenure as Governor-General of the Dutch Republic ended in 1587 — nearly a decade before this coin was struck. The designation stuck because the design type was introduced under his administration, when the rebel provinces needed a credible large silver coin to fund ongoing war with Spain and pay foreign troops who demanded hard currency they could trust.

Zeeland was among the more commercially assertive of the seven provinces, and its mint at Middelburg struck these with some frequency. The Delmonte S#903 attribution places this squarely in the series struck before the monetary reforms that would eventually standardize output across the union.