Tokens of Jacobitism

Abstract

This article is a close examination of nine Jacobite tokens made from halfpenny coins. All of them are engraved with the words ‘Down with the Rump’, and some with the additional cry ‘God Bless Prince Charles’. Dating to around and after 1748, these tokens are evidence of continued support for the Jacobite cause, and the Stuart prince specifically. While little detail can be elucidated from the objects themselves, a comparative analysis of the known surviving examples and proposed conditions of their manufacture is put forward. Contextualised among other object types, they are shown to be embedded in not only Jacobite, but longer Stuart royalist, political and emotional cultures of 18th-century Britain.