38 Dr. Smith on the Irish Coins of Edward the Fourth. 



" 2. At Henry the Fifth's funeral, on the first car were emblazoned the 

 ancient arms of England ; on the second, those of France and England, quar- 

 terly ; on the third, those of France ; and on the fourth, three crowns on a 

 field azure, which, although erroneously ascribed by Monstrelet, who gives this 

 description, to King Arthur, were more probably the arms of Henry's great 

 Lordship of Ireland. 



" 3. The crown first appears, on the first distinct and separate coinage for 

 Ireland, issued according to an Act of parliament in 1460, declaring the inde- 

 pendence of Ireland, and enacting that it should have a proper coin, separate 

 from the coin of England.* 



" 4. The three crowns appear on the Irish coins of Edward the Fourth, 

 Richard the Third, and Henry the Seventh ; they are unknown to the English 

 coinage ; and when Henry the Eighth assumed the harp as the arms of Ireland, 

 they appear no more. 



" 5. On the only silver coins on which the three crowns occur, they appear, 

 as the harp does afterwards, on the reverse ; the obverse bearing the arms of 

 England ; and when the legend, dominvs hybernie is on the coin, it is on the 

 same side with the three crowns, as it is afterwards on the same side with the 

 harp. 



" 6. That these crowns are borne, not in a shield, but ' upon a cross,' is no 

 objection to their being armorial bearings, as the harp was never borne on a 

 shield, except on some coins of Queen Elizabeth, who instead of one harp, bore 

 three in her coinage of 1561 ; as Edward the Fourth bore sometimes one, and 

 sometimes three crowns. But that the three crowns were sometimes enclosed 

 within a shield, is a fact which is incontestibly proved by a small copper coin,f 

 two specimens of which were found at Trim, and another had been previously 

 discovered at Claremont, near Dublin ; the latter is in the cabinet of the Dean 

 of St. Patrick's. 



argent,' quartered with his own coat of De Vera, ' Quarterly/ gules and or, in ihejirst quarter a 

 mullet argent.' He died without issue 16th Richard II., and was the only member of his family 

 who bore this quartering of the three crowns. His arms are so remaining now, on the porch of the 

 church at Lavenham, in Suffolk." 



* Simon, Appendix, No. V. f Plate I. fig. 21. 



