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Experimenting with Paper Money during the English Civil Wars and Interregnum: Monetisation Versus Securitisation, 1643–1663

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Financial Innovation and Resilience

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Abstract

This chapter considers the variety of species of excise-backed paper, as well as various schemes for securitisation and monetisation of the rents from seized royal, episcopal and royalist lands that arose in early modern Britain while the European continent was embroiled in the Thirty Years’ War. These schemes included a proposal for a land bank, which significantly predated the later proposals by Hugh Chamberlen and John Law. Overall, there was an opportunity for the Commonwealth regime to put the system on a sound financial footing, but that proved impossible for political reasons. The difficulty was to come up with a proposal that satisfied simultaneously the Cromwellian Army and the London Common Council, which was lobbying for speedy repayment of their £200,000 loan to the Scots.

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Coffman, D. (2018). Experimenting with Paper Money during the English Civil Wars and Interregnum: Monetisation Versus Securitisation, 1643–1663. In: Costabile, L., Neal, L. (eds) Financial Innovation and Resilience. Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90248-7_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90248-7_9

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90247-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-90248-7

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