Coins, Paper Money, Tokens and Historical Medals

A uniface silver medal, unsigned, Louis XIV as Mars (?) standing in front of a palace, nec pluribus impar, back engraved (Dutchess Dowager of Marlborough), 33mm, 9.79g. Very fine and extremely rare; with integral loop for suspension £200-300

Sarah Jennings, Duchess of Marlborough (1660-1744), a close friend and confidante of Queen Anne until they fell out in 1711, returned to favour under the Hanoverian court. On the death of her husband, the 1st Duke, on 27 June 1722, she assumed the title of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough. Immensely wealthy, especially by the standards of the day, she purchased Wimbledon manor in 1723 and hoped to influence the possibility of a royal marriage between one of her grand-daughters, Lady Diana Spencer, and Frederick, Prince of Wales, for which she would pay a dowry of £100,000, but Robert Walpole, First Lord of the Treasury, vetoed the plan. At her death her estate was valued at upwards of £4 million, excluding rents and annuities; she was buried at Blenheim