259 



Archbishop Lee was the last of the York prelates who 

 exercised the privilege of coining.^ He died in September, 

 1544. The third coinage of Henry VIH. took place in the year 

 1542, but no specimens are known of this or of any subsequent 

 coinage, bearing marks to denote that they were struck in the 

 archiepiscopal mint. 



Mr. Drake, describing the antient foundation of St. Leonard's 

 hospital, says " after the dissolution, our archbishops erected 

 their mint in this place, from whence it was called Mint Yard, 

 a name which it retains at this day."^ Saint Leonard's 

 hospital was surrendered in December 1539. The death of 

 archbishop Lee took place within five years afterwards, and as 

 it is extremely doubtful whether any coins issued from the 

 archiepiscopal mint during this interval, Mr. Drake's account 

 of the origin of the name of Mint Yard is scarcely satisfactory. 

 Perhaps it was the royal, and not the archiepiscopal mint, 

 whose operations were carried on within the precincts of Saint 

 Leonard's hospital, after it fell to the crown. At Canterbury 

 King Henry VIII. after the dissolution, placed his mint in a 

 little court which had been used as an almonry by the monks of 

 the cathedral, and it still bears the name of Mint Yard.^ 



The locality of the antient Royal Mint at York. 



Whether any permanent building, designated the Mint, 

 existed at York anterior to the reign of Edward I., I am unable 

 to ascertain. 



A writer upon the subject of coinage has expressed an opinion, 

 that in the infancy of the mint, when the demand for coin was 

 very limited, it is more than probable that the whole processes 

 of the coinage were exercised in one apartment, and that the 

 principal officers of the mint accompanied the sovereign from 

 place to place in his dominions and actually superintended the 

 fabrication of the coin at the mints of the towns where he 

 sojourned.* 



' Hawkins, p. 131. Euding, Vol. II., p. 236, « Eboracum, p. 337. 



3 Goatling's Caaterbury, p. 172. * Cyclop. Brit., Art. Coinage. 



