The Royal Mint

England’s official coin-making operation, housed within the Tower of London.

History

The Mint had operated in the Tower since the 13th century. By the late 17th century it faced a crisis: decades of coin clipping and counterfeiting had degraded the silver coinage to the point where coins contained far less silver than their face value. Trade suffered because no one trusted the money.

The Great Recoinage of 1696 was the drastic solution — the entire silver coinage was called in and reminted with milled edges that couldn’t be clipped. It was an enormous logistical undertaking, requiring temporary mints across England.

Newton at the Mint

Isaac Newton became Warden of the Mint in 1696 and Master in 1699. The Warden’s role was supposed to be a sinecure, but Newton threw himself into the work. He pursued counterfeiters with the same intensity he brought to physics, personally interrogating suspects and building cases for prosecution. He held the Master position until his death in 1727.

In the novel

The Mint and its operations become a major thread in the later Baroque Cycle volumes. In Quicksilver, it appears near the end as Daniel Waterhouse and Newton’s paths converge around questions of currency and coinage.