In 2017, to celebrate the Queens Beasts, the Royal Mint released the first in the series a Limited Issue Brilliant Uncirculated Queens Beasts Lion of England £5 Five Pound Coin.
The reverse features the Lion of England while the obverse depicts the Fifth Portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II both designed by Jody Clark.
The lion is one of the earliest animals to appear in royal emblems a traditional symbol of bravery, strength and valour.
The first recorded use was the gift of a blue shield, decorated with small golden lions, given to Geoffrey Plantagenet by Henry I as he married Henry’s daughter Matilda
, in 1127.
As long as England has had a shield of its own, it has always featured the lion in some form – the Norman kings of England used motifs featuring the ferocious beast, a tradition made consistent under Henry II and his son Richard I the ‘Lionheart’ in the twelfth century.