 The first coins of the pound sterling with the value of 12d were minted in 1503 or 1504 and were known as testoons.The testoon was one of the first English coins to bear a real (rather than a representative) portrait of the monarch on its obverse, and it is for this reason that it obtained its name from an Italian coin known as the "testone", or "headpiece", which had been introduced in Milan in 1474.Between 1544 and 1551 the coinage was debased repeatedly by the governments of Henry VIII and Edward VI in an attempt to generate more money to fund foreign wars.