NOTES ON CIVIL-WAB COINS. 55 



and on the reverse a helmet. The coin is described by 

 Hawkins in his Silver Coins of England (3rd. ed.) among the 

 half crowns which he regarded as " uncertain," in the geograph- 

 ical sense, and is drawn in his plates as Fig. 502. An example 

 in the British Museum collection is illustrated on the accom- 

 panying plate as No. 3. The earlier attribution. of this rare 

 coin to a mint at Salisbury was first put forward by Mr. J. B. 

 Bergne in 1848 (Num. Chron., XII., 58-62); but the reasons 

 for that proposal were somewhat nebulous, being chiefly 

 based upon a passing visit by Charles to Salisbury in October, 

 1644. I observe that Hawkins does not refer at all to this 

 attribution, and that the British Museum Handbook mentions 

 it only in very general terms, omissions which suggest that 

 the respective editors doubted the accuracy of Mr. Bergne 's 

 allocation to the Wiltshire city. 



The history of the Civil War in that county affords little, 

 if any, support to the theory that the course of events was 

 such as to render probable the establishment of a mint during 

 a Royalist occupation. On the contrary, Sir Richard C. 

 Hoare in his Modern Wiltshire (1843) tells us that " to the 

 open and unprotected state of the city the inhabitants may 

 perhaps ascribe their exemption from the miseries of a siege 

 with which so many other places were visited." Skirmishes 

 of a more or less serious character were plentiful enough ; 

 but there was no prolonged defence by the troops of either 

 party during the course of the war. Nor does an examination 

 of the coins furnish any link, as far as I can see, in the shape 

 of a mint -mark derived from the charges on the armorial 

 shield of the city, as was the case at Chester or Exeter or 

 Worcester. Indeed, both the type and the fabric of all the 

 examples are admittedly those of a coinage which has been 

 identified with another town, viz., Weymouth. For these 

 reasons it would appear that we must rely solely upon the 

 presence of the letters SA. if we seek to connect these 

 pieces with Sarum or Salisbury a rather unsafe foundation 

 upon which to build when other evidence is not forth- 

 coming. 



