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William III 1689-1702 AD (Maundy)
William III of Orange was born at The Hague on 4th November, 1650. He was the posthumous son of William II of Orange and of Mary Stuart, the eldest daughter of Charles I and Henrietta Maria of France. His grieving mother had given birth to him in a chamber draped with black mourning. William's father, the Prince of Orange, had died but a week previously on 27th October, of smallpox.
The marriage of the first cousins was arranged for diplomatic motives by Charles II. It did not get off to a very auspicious start, on first sight of William, Mary wept inconsolably. At twenty-seven, he was not an attractive prospective partner, with his thin, hunched body, extremely large aquiline nose and piercing eyes. Mary's sister Anne unkindly referred to him as 'Caliban', after the mythical Greek ogre of monstrous appearance. Her father consented reluctantly to the match.
The wedding took place on 4th November, 1677 and was a dismal affair, the bride cried throughout while her father looked on anxiously, the Groom was austere and uncomfortable, with only King Charles II smiling and joking in attempt to lighten the dour atmosphere. After such an unpromising start, the marriage surprisingly proved to be a successful one, though it was never to produce any children.
For the joint reign of William and Mary , threepences were produced in all years from 1689 to 1694. For the first two years a somewhat caricatured portrait of the monarchs was used, replaced by a rather more staid portrait in 1691, with the inscription GVLIELMVS ET MARIA D G, while the reverse shows a crowned Arabic number "3" and the inscription MAG BR FR ET HIB REX ET REGINA date. For the sole reign of William III the design remained very similar, with the inscriptions changed to GVLIELMVS III DEI GRA and MAG BR FR ET HIB REX date.
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