Dr. Smith on the Irish Coins of Henry the Seventh. 69 



& FR, and at each point of the tressure there is a small cross ; now in all the 

 arched crown groats of Henry which I have seen, they have only henric, nor 

 have any of them crosses at the points of the tressure ; in the next place, his coin 

 has the motto posvi devm aivtorivm, which I have observed only on coins with 

 a cross Jburchee on the reverse. 



All these differences can, perhaps, be accounted for, by supposing that Simon 

 had before him a groat similar to my fig. 40, and it is very remarkable that the 

 relative position of the letters on the reverses of his coin and mine are the same ; 

 thus POSVI and inie are in the same quarter of the cross, instead of posvi and 

 CI VI as on most other coins. It is probable, that the legend on the obverse was 

 imperfect, and that the deficiency was supplied by copying from a groat with 

 the arched crown, and the arches of the tressure may have been mistaken for 

 those of the crown. 



The half-groat has the crown apparently with a single arch, surmounted with 

 a ball and cross, the hair in long flowing curls, trefoils at the points of the tres- 

 sure, and on the breast the letter v inverted. The legend is henric di gra 

 REX ANLiE ; reverse, posvi devm adivtor, and civitas dvlin, with a cross 

 after dv. It weighs twenty-one grains and a half. — (Fig. 35.) 



The arches of the crown, which are plain, the arrangement of the hair, the v 

 on the breast,* the meaning of which I cannot explain, the legends, and the 

 trefoils at the points of the tressure, distinguish this coin from the groats. The 

 small cross in the inner circle has been taken for an x, but a similar cross occurs 

 at the end of the motto, and also on the reverse of the penny, fig. 22, on which it 

 certainly does not represent a letter. The weight of this piece is considerably 

 more than half of the groat ; another specimen which I have seen weighs only 

 fourteen grains and a half. 



Henry the Seventh, in his fifth year, introduced the type of the arched 

 crown on the English coins,f and shortly after (1491) Nicholas Flint, who held 

 several offices in connexion with the English mint, in the early part of Henry's 

 reign, was appointed master of the mint in Dublin and Waterford. 



From these data I infer that the arched-crown groats were minted by Flint, 



* Mr. Hawkins mentions a Durham penny of Edward the Fourth, with a v on the breast. — Silver 

 Coins of England, p. 115. 

 + Hawkins, p. 107. . 



