Royal Mint resume minting their own supplementary tokens. In 1672 the Royal Mint finally took over the production of copper coinage. Prior to the outbreak of the English Civil War, England signed a treaty in 1630 with Spain which ensured a steady supply of silver bullion to the Tower mint. Additional branch mints to aid the one in London were set up including one at Aberystwyth Castle, in Wales. In 1642 parliament seized control of the Tower mint and after Charles I tried to arrest the Five Members he was forced to flee London, establishing at least 16 emergency mints across the
Royal Mint British Isles in Colchester, Chester, Cork, Edinburgh, Dublin, Exeter, Salisbury, parts of Cornwall including Truro, Weymouth, Worcester, York, Carlisle, Newark, Pontefract and Scarborough (see also siege money). After raising the royal standard in Nottingham marking the beginning of the war, Charles called upon loyalist mining engineer Thomas Bushell, the owner of a mint and silver mine in Aberystwyth, to move his operations to the royalist-held Shrewsbury, possibly within in the grounds of Shrewsbury Castle. The mint there was however short-lived, operating for no more than three months before Charles ordered Bushell to relocate the mint to his headquarters in the