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CARLOS III
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1759-1788
Obverse:
CARLO.III.D.G. (Dei Gratia= By the grace of God) HISP.ETIND.R. ( =
King of Spain and the Indies) around the bust of Carlos III, date below.
Reverse:
Crowned shield of the House of Bourbon, mintmark, denomination and
assayer identification. Symbol of the Order of the Golden Fleece at
bottom.
First son
of Philip V and his second wife, Elizabeth Farnes of Parma, Carlos III
was considered the greatest of Spanish Bourbons.
He ruled
as duke of Parma, by right of his mother, from 1732 to 1734 and then
became king of Naples. On the death of his half-brother Ferdinand VI in
1759, after a useful apprenticeship of 25 years as an absolute ruler,
Carlos became king of Spain and resigned the crown of Naples.
Carlos III was
convinced of his mission to reform Spain and restore it once more as a
world power. Though Carlos did not possess a particularly brilliant
mind, he had a good deal of common sense and was highly effective in
selecting ministers and men of outstanding quality to improve the
government.
His frugality
and application to the business of government impressed foreign
observers as well as his own subjects. His religious devotion was
accompanied by a blameless personal life and a chaste loyalty to the
memory of his wife, Maria Amalia of Saxony who died in 1760. He never
remarried, rather it was said that in the best British public school
tradition, he took a cold bath or paced the floor whenever the fevers of
lust assailed him.
Carlos’s
ecclesiastical policy was conditioned by his determination to complete
the subordination of the church to the crown. Subsequently, he exiled
the Jesuits and stripped the Inquisition of its last vestige of power.
Carlos had a
fanatical addiction to hunting, his enduring passion. It is said he
hunted all but three days of the year, rain or shine. Slightly before
his death, he boasted to a foreign ambassador that he had killed 539
wolves and 5,323 foxes.
During his
reign, the pillar or two-world type coinage was discontinued in favor of
the new bust type coinage. The crowned arms of Spain remained the
same. Silver coinage was struck in denominations of 8, 4, 2, 1 and ½
reales. Gold coins were minted in units of 8, 4, 2, 1, and ½ escudos.
Dave Wagner, American Numismatic Association
Member 172893
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