In for a silver penny
A 12th century coin found in a North Yorkshire field by a metal detectorist fetched nearly £30,000 after a bidding battle. John Vincent reports.
His name is all but lost in the mists of medieval history... but the astute Baron Eustace Fitzjohn (or Fitz John) was one the most powerful men in the north of England. Born in relatively humble circumstances, he profited from royal patronage during the reigns of Henry I (1100-1135), Stephen (1135-1154) and Henry II (1154-1189), acquiring vast tracts of land and influence in Yorkshire (in Bridlington, Knaresborough, Tickhill,
Old Malton, Watton and Aldborough), Northumberland, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire.
Now an extremely rare silver penny struck in the influential baron’s image in York, discovered in a field of stubble near Pickering by Rob Brown from Leeds using a metal detector, has sold for £29,760 – twice as much as expected – at Dix Noonan Webb in London after an international bidding battle.
Through royal favours and two marriages – both to wealthy heiresses – he became Lord of Alnwick, Old Malton and Watton, Constable of Bamburgh and Knaresborough Castles and served as joint justiciar (administrator of justice) of the North. His first wife was Beatrix, daughter and heiress of Ivo de Vesci, a nobleman whose lands in Northumberland and Yorkshire were given to him by William II.
His second marriage, some time before 1130 and also profitable, was to Agnes, daughter William fitz Nigel, of Halton, Cheshire, and Constable of Chester, who held estates throughout the North and in Normandy. The marriage brought Baron Eustace even more land and control of many other sub-tenancies held from a number of lords, including the Archbishop of York, Bishop of Durham and the Count of Aumale in Normandy.
Eustace Fitzjohn was a prominent member of Henry I’s court but following his death in 1135 supported the Empress Matilda when she fought a civil war with her cousin Stephen during the period known as The Anarchy. Fitzjohn became a supporter of Matilda’s uncle, King David of Scotland, to whom he surrendered Alnwick Castle and Malton Castle temporarily.
But he kept most of his lands in the North and from about 1144 became one of the main followers of the AngloNorman Baron Ranulf II, Earl of Chester, and through him gained even more land. Eustace founded three religious houses and was killed by the Welsh in an ambush on a campaign with Henry II in 1157.
The sale of the silver penny, one of only 20 known, follows that at the same auction house last year of one depicting King Stephen and his wife, Queen Consort Matilda, struck in York in the early 1140s, which realised £12,400.
That rarity was found by lifelong metal detectorist Graeme Rushton, in a ploughed field on the South YorkshireLincolnshire border in 2018.
■ The Oliver Cromwell 50 shilling gold coin from 1656 (previewed here last month) was bought by an American for a world record £471,200, against an estimate of up to £150,000.