Cary Elwes and Helena Bonham Carter in Lady Jane
In the 1986 film Lady Jane (starring Helena Bonham Carter and Cary Elwes), when the teenage Lady Jane Grey is unexpectedly proclaimed Queen of England, she and her husband Guilford Dudley really shake things up!
Being socially woke, they make new laws to help the needy, they give away the treasury to the poor, and they reform the currency. For years, coinage in England had been debased to near worthlessness. Jane and Guilford mint a new shilling as a symbol of righting old wrongs, and as a testament of their love for one another.
Historically, the real Jane was not a 'proto-socialist feminist, a strange amalgam of Robin Hood and Beatrice Webb', as one historian described her,* nor was she in love with Guilford. During Jane's brief reign of nine days, the two bickered over whether Guilford should be made King or not; Jane refused.
And as for the reformed shilling, there was none of course.
However, two examples of coins with Jane as Queen appeared in the mid 19th century. They were quickly exposed as fakes, and the work of one Edward Emery, who had also made other counterfeits. Still, Emery's forgeries can fetch good prices on today's collectors' market.
Although you can't get your hands on a piece of actual history, you can get a piece of movie history. The shilling (no relation to Emery's work) as seen in 'Lady Jane' can actually be purchased as a movie prop:
* 'Lady Jane Grey in Film' by Carole Levin in Tudors and Stuarts on Film - Historical Perspectives (edited by Susan Doran and Thomas S. Freeman), New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, p. 82.
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