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



Simon was of opinion, " that the first pieces with the three crowns were 

 struck in the reign of Henry the Sixth," during his brief restoration, in 1470. 

 But it is very questionable whether Henry caused any money to be made in Ire- 

 land during that brief Interval ; and when we consider the weight of the pieces 

 appropriated to him, and compare them with those of Edward, ordered to be 

 made in 1470, in which year the standard of the Irish groat was fixed at nearly 

 forty-one grains, it cannot be admitted that any money of the three-crown type, 

 the groats of which rarely exceed thirty, and never, I believe, thirty-two grains, 

 was coined previous to the year 1478 ; and from the Act of the latter year, it 

 may be inferred, that the liberties of Meath had been in abeyance during the 

 first eighteen years of Edward's reign, and that when they were restored, the 

 new type was Introduced, and that the privilege of striking money, granted to 

 Lord Grey, the Lord Deputy, was indicated by placing on the coins the arms of 

 the Lord of Ireland. 



I have now concluded my remarks, which have extended to a far greater 

 length than I anticipated, when I entered on this investigation ; and I trust that 

 when the opinions I have advanced, and the evidence I have adduced, shall be 

 duly considered, it will be admitted that I have in some degree succeeded in 

 clearing up several of the obscurities in which the history of the coins of this 

 reign have been so long involved. 



France quartered on the obverse ; and on the reverse, the arms of Ireland. Now it is probable Sir 

 James Ware knew Ireland had been represented by arms of some kind, but that he committed the 

 mistake of supposing that the device on the reverse alone represented three kingdoms instead of 

 one. 



