The Last Kingdom Coins: Alfred the Great, Guthrum & Viking England
The Real Coinage Behind Netflix's The Last Kingdom
Alfred the Great, Guthrum, the Viking Wars, and the actual coins that survived them.
Uhtred of Bebbanburg is fictional. Alfred the Great, Guthrum, Ceolwulf of Mercia, and the Viking rulers of York were not.
The Last Kingdom dramatizes one of the most consequential periods in early medieval history, the 9th and 10th century struggle between Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and Viking invaders, and many of the rulers at its center left behind actual coins that still exist today.
These are not polished Roman imperials. Anglo-Saxon and Viking coinage is compact, hand-struck, often crudely engraved, and sometimes difficult to read. But that roughness is the point. The coins of Alfred's era were struck during a period when kingdoms could collapse within a generation, when Viking armies had overrun Northumbria, East Anglia, and most of Mercia, and when Wessex stood as the last major independent Anglo-Saxon kingdom. The coins reflect exactly that world: functional, urgent, and produced under pressure. They are among the earliest truly English coinage, struck during the formation of the nation that The Last Kingdom portrays.
Alfred the Great and His Coins
Alfred the Great's silver pennies are among the most historically important coins of early medieval England. Most are small hammered pieces featuring simple busts, crosses, monograms, geometric patterns, and Latin inscriptions naming the king and the moneyer who struck them. They look nothing like Roman imperials. The engraving is often abstract, the fabric small and irregular, the portraiture more symbolic than realistic. But two specific Alfred issues stand out for their historical significance.
The London Monogram penny, associated with Alfred's restoration of London in the late 880s, uses an interlaced monogram design probably inspired by Carolingian coinage, a deliberate statement of royal authority and civic revival at the heart of what would become England's capital. The Two Emperors type is even more remarkable: it shows Alfred and Ceolwulf II of Mercia seated side by side, explicitly modeled on late Roman dual-emperor coinage, symbolizing the alliance between Wessex and Mercia against Viking expansion. The design is a direct numismatic echo of the Roman tradition, deployed by an Anglo-Saxon king who understood the propaganda power of coinage. The 2015 Watlington Hoard discovery, containing Alfred and Ceolwulf silver pennies buried around 878 to 879, dramatically expanded scholarly understanding of these issues and their circulation during the most intense phase of the Viking wars.
That is not a crude medieval penny. That is a political statement in silver, struck at the moment England's survival was most in doubt.
When Alfred put himself on a coin alongside the king of Mercia, seated as equals and styled after Roman imperial precedent, he was reaching back deliberately to the coinage of the empire that had once ruled Britain. The late Roman bronzes that still turned up in English soil were the direct model for that Two Emperors design, the visual language of imperial authority Alfred wanted to claim for a new English kingdom.
The Historical Figures Behind the Series
The Last Kingdom spans several decades and multiple reigns. The rulers connected to its story, both Anglo-Saxon and Viking, left different numismatic traces, from personally attributable coin issues to broader coinages that defined the era's monetary culture.
- Alfred the Great (871 to 899), the central figure, whose London Monogram and Two Emperors pennies are among the most important early medieval English coins, greatly expanded by the Watlington Hoard
- Guthrum / Aethelstan, defeated at Edington in 878, baptized and ruling East Anglia, a Viking issuing English-style Christian coinage, one of the clearest records of cultural transformation
- Ceolwulf II of Mercia, Alfred's ally on the Two Emperors penny, whose independent Mercian coinage also survives
- Viking rulers of York, whose Anglo-Viking coinage, including the St. Peter issues of Jorvik, blends Scandinavian authority with Christian symbolism
- St. Edmund memorial issues, struck by later Viking rulers naming the East Anglian king they had killed, conquerors invoking a Christian martyr to legitimize their rule
- Edward the Elder (899 to 924), Alfred's son, whose pennies document an England beginning to cohere into a unified kingdom
Collecting the Coinage of This Era
Anglo-Saxon and Viking coinage occupies a different collecting register from Roman imperials. The artistry is less refined, the fabric smaller, the inscriptions harder to read. But for collectors drawn to The Last Kingdom's historical world, this coinage offers something Roman coins cannot: a direct material connection to the specific rulers, battles, and cultural transformations the series dramatizes.
Premium entry points. Alfred the Great silver pennies are the historically significant centerpiece, expensive for fine examples but present in the market. Guthrum's East Anglian pennies, St. Edmund memorial issues, and Viking York coinages all represent historically specific acquisitions with direct connections to the series' world. These are coins struck by rulers the show portrays as real historical figures, because they were.
More accessible options. Northumbrian stycas, small copper-alloy coins from the 9th century kingdom that opens the series, are among the most affordable Anglo-Saxon coins available. Anglo-Viking imitative issues, common medieval hammered pennies, and lower-grade examples of major types offer genuine period coins at accessible prices. Every piece is real. None of it is replica. The rough medieval character is the point, not the problem.
The coins of Alfred's era look nothing like the Roman imperials in the earlier Kinzer Coins collection. They are small, rough, sometimes barely legible, struck with hand-engraved dies by moneyers working in the middle of the most dangerous period in English history. That roughness is historically honest. When Alfred struck his Two Emperors penny alongside Ceolwulf of Mercia, England's survival was not assured. When Guthrum's moneyers struck Christian silver in East Anglia, they were doing it to demonstrate that a Viking ruler could govern an Anglo-Saxon kingdom. When Viking lords in York put Saint Peter's name on their coins, they were navigating a cultural transformation that would eventually produce a unified England. These coins are not primitive versions of better coins. They are the only surviving material record from one of the most consequential decades in British history. Uhtred is fictional. The coins are not.
Hold what the greats held.
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