Money and Money ers. 415 



master and worker. Charles, in fact, farmed out — nominally 

 on a sub-contract with the mint-master — the moneying process 

 to the moneyers, thereby creating an imjperium in im/perio which 

 paved the way for the introduction into the Mint system of 

 many anomalies and incongruities. Prom the year 1626, there- 

 fore, may be traced the rise and influence of the Company of 

 Moneyers, which influence culminated, and was overthrown in 

 the reign of Queen Victoria. 



Previous to this time almost the only notices respecting 

 them which occur in legal documents have reference to their 

 being impressed or imported from beyond seas, or being in 

 poverty or distress. The power thus placed in their hands by 

 the unfortunate monarch was used in successfully obstructing, 

 for some thirty years subsequently, the introduction of improved 

 machinery into the mint. On the 11th of February, 1629, for 

 example, a royal warrant was issued authorising Nicholas Briot, 

 the eminent mint engraver, to make trial in the Tower, of his 

 new mills and presses for coining, but up to the year 1631, as 

 appears from a petition of Briot, this trial was never permitted. 

 The moneyers, in fact, disapproved the experiment, and pre- 

 vented its being made. Similarly, in 1649, " The Council of 

 State and the Commons in Parliament, having had it repre- 

 sented to them that the coins of the realm might be more 

 perfectly and beautifully done, it was ordained, that Peter 

 Blondeau should be sent for from Paris to come to London to 

 treat for the price and expense of coining money after his new 

 invention." Blondeau arrived in London in September of that 

 year, but though the committee of the Mint was appointed to 

 examine his new way of- coining, and reported favourably upon 

 it, the opposition of the moneyers was so powerful that a con- 

 siderable time elapsed before he could proceed to realize his 

 plans. He was at last permitted to execute some proof pieces, 

 whereupon the moneyers exhibited against Blondeau a charge 

 of treason, for coining in a private house ! Under pressure of 

 this he was driven out of the kingdom. The introduction of 

 improved machinery into the mint was thus vexatiously delayed 

 until 1662, when Blondeau was again sent for — the office of 

 engineer, with a salary of £100, was created for him, and profit- 

 able rates were assigned him under a twenty-one years' patent. 



Before passing finally from these times, it may be well to 

 state that it was the period when the British coinage attained 

 its greatest beauty and perfection. In 1628, Nicholas Briot, 

 and in 1649, Thomas Simon, his pupil, were respectively ap- 

 pointed engravers to the mint, in which position the latter, 

 indeed, remained till after the Restoration ; and it is a striking 

 fact that, notwithstanding the introduction latterly of machinery 

 of the most elaborate and ingenious kind, scarcely an approach 



