In 2018, to celebrate the Queens Beasts, the Royal Mint released a Limited Issue Brilliant Uncirculated Queens Beasts Pride of England Lion £5 Five Pound Coin Pack Sealed.
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 Queen’s Beasts Collection, the coin has been updated with a 2018 date mark. A traditional symbol of strength and courage, it’s the perfect way to mark that moment when a nation dared to dream.
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.