60 Dr. Smith on the Irish Coins of Henri/ the Seventh. 



I have already shewn, that in the third year of Henry the Sixth (1425), 

 the master of the coinage in Dublin was bound, by indenture, to make the coins 

 of the same weight, allay, and assay, as the silver money, which leas made in 

 London, from which time until the thirty-eighth year of the same reign (1460), 

 it does not appear, nor is it probable, that any change in the standard took place ; 

 but in the latter year the Irish groat was ordered to be made " of the weight of 

 three deniers sterling." The penny, or " denier sterling" of that time, weighed 

 fifteen grains, consequently the Irish groat of 1460 should weigh only forty-five 

 grains, and was a fourth less in weight and value than the English groat. And 

 from this time " the first difference and inequality betwixt the standard of the 

 English and Irish monies"* is to be dated, and not, as Sir John Davis supposed, 

 from the fifth year of Edward the Fourth, at which time, however, the standard 

 in Ireland was again changed, while its proportion to the English groat was pre- 

 served, which had been reduced in 1464 from sixty to forty-eight grains. During 

 the subsequent years of Edward's reign, the standard of his Irish money was fre- 

 quently altered, according to the exigencies of the times, and in the first year 

 of Richard the Third, 1483, his Irish money was ordered to be made according 

 to the standard of the twelfth year of Edward the Fourth, at which time the 

 weight of the Irish groat was about thirty-two grains, or a third less than the 

 English. 



It has been just stated, that Edward reduced the English groat to forty-eight 

 grains, which standard was adhered to in England, until the eighteenth year of 

 Henry the Eighth. The Irish groat, during the latter part of Edward's reign 

 and that of Richard, was about a third less than the English, and that the same 

 proportion was observed in the early part of the reign of Henry the Seventh, is 

 evident, from a passage in a letter, written by Octavian, Archbishop of Armagh, 

 to the king in 1487, "recommending Arthur Magennis to that prince, for the 

 bishopric of Dromore, wherein he says, that the revenue of that diocese is not 

 worth above forty pounds, of the coin of Ireland, which is less hy the third part 

 than the coin sterling."^ From this evidence and also from the fact, that some of 

 Henry's groats, when in good preservation, weigh thirty-two grains, which I be- 

 lieve they never exceed, I conclude that the standard in Ireland was not altered 

 during the reign of Henry, and that his Irish groat was always a third less than 

 the English of the same period. 



* See p. 50. f Simon, p. 31. 



