1 94 CURRENCF. 



the new currency. That the recipients of this currency be- 

 lieved the issue to be a temporary measure, and that the coin 

 would be redeemed in new money of sterling fineness, is 

 manifest. They were disappointed, and the successors of 

 Henry began by crying down the coins which they issued or 

 their father had issued. And it was here that the misery was 

 felt, since it was plain that any holder would be a loser. 

 This is illustrated as follows. In April 1551, the king, Edward 

 the Sixth, issues a proclamation, in which, on the plea that 

 the base money is imitated, it is ordered that henceforth, from 

 the last day of August, the teston and the groat, the nominal 

 values of which were twelve and four pence, should be valued 

 at nine and three pence. In the same year, I find in my notes, 

 extracted from the annual roll of Peterhouse College, that this 

 society lost ij gs. $d., in decasu peczmiarum Collegii hoc 

 anno ex edicto regis. Similar entries will be found under the 

 year 1559 in the accounts of the city of Oxford. 



There was a plausible excuse, though a shallow one, which 

 was alleged for these fraudulent issues, the wisdom of retaining 

 specie in England. These base coins, circulating on the king's 

 credit, would not be exported, and the good silver not being 

 tendered, the foreigner could not get hold of it. But those 

 who reasoned thus forgot that the good money would dis- 

 appear, and that bad money would be coined by imitators. 

 The last is the reason why Edward the Sixth decried his own 

 and his father's money. The plea for the original issue of the 

 base money was the expenses of the king's war, i.e. the cost 

 of the foolish and hollow alliance which Henry made with 

 Charles the Fifth in 1543. 



The first debasement was in 1544, the coins containing only 

 half their weight in silver. In 1545, one third only of silver 

 was contained in the new issue. In the first and second 

 years of Edward the Sixth, the standard was maintained at 

 the later debasement, in the third it was slightly raised. In 

 the fourth and fifth, the amount of silver was only one fourth 

 of the whole. But in the last year Edward attempted to 



