42 DORSET SEVENTEENTH CENTURY TOKENS. 



It was found to be necessary that there should be money of small 

 value for the use of the market and the poorer sort of subjects, as 

 of the larger species for the other purposes of trade. Small change 

 of a more useful size and weight was therefore required, even 

 though it must consist of baser metal. Many petitions were 

 presented to Queen Elizabeth on this subject, but owing to the 

 difficulties the Queen had experienced in restoring the standard of 

 silver money, which had been much debased during the extravagant 

 reign of Henry VIII. (as one may easily see by merely handling 

 one of the groats of that reign), her aversion to a base currency 

 was so great that the project was abandoned without trial. 



In the succeeding reign many proposals were made to the Crown 

 for striking farthing tokens, the reasons assigned being the in- 

 fringement of the Royal prerogative by private persons making 

 them, the loss which the poor sustained by their not being 

 universally current, and the want of them to bestow in charity. 

 In the year 1613 King James I. delegated his prerogative of 

 striking copper money to John Stanhope, Baron Harington, for a 

 money consideration ; the patent, however, being granted for 

 farthings only. On the accession of Charles I. to the throne in 

 1625 the patent for the coinage of farthings was renewed. The 

 privilege was grossly abused by the patentees, who issued them in 

 unreasonable quantities, and of a merely nominal intrinsic value, 

 the coins weighing only six grains each. In a short time the 

 whole kingdom, and more especially the home counties, were so 

 burdened with them that in many places scarcely any silver or 

 gold coin was left, the currency consisting entirely of farthing 

 tokens. 



The accumulation of the patent farthings in the hands of small 

 tradesmen caused the latter so great a loss from the refusal of the 

 patentees to rechange them, that in 1644, in consequence of the 

 public clamour, they were suppressed by the House of Commons, 

 which ordered that they should be rechanged from money raised 

 upon the patentees' estates. The death of the King put an end to 

 the exclusive prerogative of coining copper and brass ; the tokens 



