Commemorative Medals, Sir Sydenham Poyntz (1607-1663), Parliamentarian Major-General, silver portrait medal, 1646, by Abraham Simon, bust of Poyntz, to l., hair long, in armour with plain falling collar and scarf across the breast, signed A.S. on truncation, rev. legend in 6 lines, 1646 . SIDEN : POINTZ . 10,000 . EQVIT : ET . PED : ASSOCIAT : SEPTENT : DVX . SVM : EBOR : GVBER., 35mm (MI 325/163; Eimer 152; Hill & Pollard [1978], pl 30, 1; Platt II, pp. 250-256), original shaped suspension loop and small loop at bottom (for droplet), a strong portrait, some tooling to field and casting flaw on M of SVM, good very fine
*Bt. Spink, 13 February, 1984.
Major-General Sir Sydenham Poyntz (1607-1663) returned to England in 1645 after 20 years experience as a mercenary fighting for the Imperial Spanish army under Ernst von Mansfeld during the Thirty Years' War. Given command of Parliamentary forces in northern England, in September 1645 he defeated the King at Rowton Heath and prevented the relief of Chester, as detailed on the medal's legend. Sir John Maclean, Memoir of the Family of Poyntz (1886), refers to the medal being made at York, where Poyntz had been appointed Governor in 1645, though the present cataloguers can find no confirmation of this. Poyntz was made to resign his commission (in favour of John Lambert); he had some involvement in the failed Presbyterian coup of the summer of 1647; he fled to Amsterdam, then in 1650 was appointed governor of the Leeward Islands in the West Indies. It is thought he may have ended his days in Virginia.
The Alan Irvine Collection of Historical and Artistic Medals (1000-1500 GBP)