230 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Sept. 22. 1855. 



consequence of there now existing no mint price 

 for that metal, must for the same reason apply 

 equally to gold coins, since silver, as before stated, 

 being the only legal tender, the value of gold 

 coins at that period fluctuated according to the 

 relative worth of the two metals in the market. 



I was by no means insensible to the common 

 error exposed by A. H., in determining the value 

 of ancient silver coin ; but in the instance alluded 

 to the difference in the intrinsic worth of the 

 metal for the two periods being for all practical 

 purposes inappreciable, it was consequently ex- 

 cluded from my calculation.* The error com- 

 mitted by the translator of Boeckh's Economy of 

 Athens is of a different description, and consists 

 in his omitting from the computation of the value 

 of the Attic drachma, mina, and talent, the whole 

 of the present seignorage upon the .coinage of 

 silver : — such an omission, in cases too where 

 operations of such magnitude are involved, is of 

 course indefensible ; but, let me ask, has not your 

 correspondent repeated the error, in his attempt 

 to reduce the gold coins of the date 1604 to their 

 present value as bullion, by taking the mint price 

 of 3?. 17s. \Q\d. per oz., instead of Zl. 17s. 9rf., 

 the bullion price of the metal ? 



I confess, too, I am unable to understand the 

 statement which follows, viz. that " a shilling of 

 the coinage of 1604 would, supposing the present 

 price of standard silver to be 62 pence, be worth 

 a shilling now." The shilling of 1604 contained 

 92-9032 grains of silver of 11 oz. 2 dwts. fine, 

 which at the mint price of 5s. 2d. per oz. would 

 of course be worth one shilling ; the same coin of 

 the present day contains only 87"2727 grains of 

 silver of the same standard, value, at os. 2d. per 

 oz., 11*27 pence, the difference being, as I before 

 stated, equal to the seignorage imposed in 1816 

 (56 Geo. III.), or about 6^ per cent. But this 

 scarcely represents the true state of the case ; the 

 average market price of silver being at present 

 5s. l^d, per oz., the same number of standard 

 grains would be worth only 11-18 pence ; whereas 

 in 1604 there existed a seignorage of 2s. 66?. on the 

 coinage of silver (or a little more than 4 per cent.), 

 consequently the value of 92 9032 grains at the 

 mint price of 4s. ll^d. per oz. would be reduced 

 to a fraction, over ll^f/. ; the real difference be- 

 tween coins of the two periods being equal, in 

 round numbers, to 3 per cent. 



A. H. takes exception to my statement that 31s. 

 of the time of Charles I. are equivalent to 33s. of 

 the present time, adding, " if thirty-one of these 

 old shillings were found, they could not be melted 

 down and the bullion sold for 33s." Possibly not ; 



but apart from the reason he adduces, this would 

 depend in a great measure upon the condition of 

 the coins, whether worn, &c. ; but if 31s. of the 

 old, and 33s. of the new coinage, weight for 

 weight, were melted down and sold in the way 

 proposed, the price realised for the bullion would 

 be the same in both instances ; and things which 

 are equal to the same thing, I presume, are equal 

 to one another. W. Coles. 



* The average price of standard silver for the last 

 twelve months I find to have been within a fraction of 

 61 J pence (61-47), the difference therefore upon the sum 

 in question, viz. IZ. sterling, would have amounted to less 

 than 2d. 



No. 308.] 



SIR JEROME BOWES. 



(Vol. xii., p. 109.) 



In reply to Mr. Wynen's notice of Aug. 11, I 

 can only say that Surtees was unable to give any 

 information about Sir Jerome, although the blank 

 of several pages left in his fourth volume of the 

 History of Durham, in re " Bowes," shows that he 

 meant to have added somewhat to his account of 

 Sir Jerome, and of Sir Martin the Lord Mayor, 

 both of whom he mentions. I am inclined to 

 think that Mr. Wynen's supposition as to his 

 political position at Queen Elizabeth's court is 

 the correct one, and that what I stated as to his 

 mercantile pursuits in " N. & Q.," Vol. x., p. 127., 

 is a mistake. I must here correct an error I 

 made in that article in transcribing ; the lines 

 " Cecilia Bowes, daughter of John, Sir Jeremy's 

 brother, and the other Elizabeth Bowes, daughter 

 of Sir Martin," should stand " Elizabeth Bowes, 

 daughter of John, Sir Jeremy's father, and the 

 other Cecilia Bowies, daughter of Sir Martin," 

 &c. 



I fancy from the date that Sir Martin, and not 

 Sir Jerome, must be the man alluded to in a sar- 

 castic letter from Sir Thomas Wyatt to Bishop 

 Bonner, that vilest of prelates, in which reproach- 

 ing him with certain scandalous reports about a 

 " ladye faire," he says that Bonner had better call 

 witnesses, or rather ask them if what he says of 

 his [Bonner's] evil life be not true. 



"Ask Mason, ask Blagg (Bowes is dead), ask Wolf 

 that was my steward ; they can tell how the gentlemen 

 marked it and talked of it." — See Bell's " Life of Sir 

 Thomas Wyatt," prefixed to his edition of Wyatt's Poems, 

 p. 40. 



The only additional information that I can 

 give, besides his mere descent, is, that he un- 

 doubtedly lived at Hackney, then a fashionable 

 suburb, and sprung from a John Bowes, who 

 married Anne, daughter of Gunville of Gorleston, 

 CO. Suffolk, who bore the same arms as those of 

 Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. His 

 wife was Jane, co-heiress of Roger Rookwood, of 

 Euston in Suffolk, Esq., and widow of James 

 Calthorp, of Cockthorp, Esq. A moiety of the 

 Fishley estate went to her son, Sir Christopher 

 Calthorp. She and Sir Jerome conveyed away 

 their moiety thereof, 6 Eliz. [1564]. 



