All 3 Uses

sovereign
in
Wuthering Heights
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And she noticed the man — Heathcliff it was, she felt certain: nob'dy could mistake him, besides — put a sovereign in her father's hand for payment.†
p. 96.8 *
I getten summut else to do,' he answered, and continued his work; moving his lantern jaws meanwhile, and surveying my dress and countenance (the former a great deal too fine, but the latter, I'm sure, as sad as he could desire) with sovereign contempt.†
p. 100.6
As they stepped on to the door-stones, and halted to take a last look at the moon — or, more correctly, at each other by her light — I felt irresistibly impelled to escape them again; and, pressing a remembrance into the hand of Mrs. Dean, and disregarding her expostulations at my rudeness, I vanished through the kitchen as they opened the house-door; and so should have confirmed Joseph in his opinion of his fellow-servant's gay indiscretions, had he not fortunately recognised me for a respectable character by the sweet ring of a sovereign at his feet.†
p. 245.7

Definitions:

(1) (sovereign)
a supreme ruler; or describing a political body as self-governing
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
a British coin used until 1914; an adjective describing something as powerfully effective