in our coinage, for besides the two improvements just mentioned there is a third, which, like the second, died with him, to be revived again some time after.

Foreign gold coins had been in circulation; for, says Ruding " In his thirty-fifth year, he commanded Philip "Luvel to pay the whole sum of gold which he owed the "king, on the feast of St. Edward, in gold money, in bezants, "or ob de mus', and other gold money. Provided, however, "that the aforesaid money should answer to the king at the

value of leaf gold; that is, I presume, fine gold." Probably Henry found this gold currency convenient, for in his forty-first year he struck and issued his gold penny (see Plate II), the rate of twenty pennies of sterlings for every gold penny; this coin, however, had not a long existence, for three months after its currency by proclamation, the citizens of London petitioned against it, and its circulation was then declared not to be compulsory; it soon after disappeared, and only three specimens are now known to exist. Edward I is said to have issued his first coinage of half-pence and farthings (see Plate III) in the year 1279, which are the first round half-pence and farthings now to be seen, though, as I said before, Henry III is known to have struck some.

This new coinage was followed by a proclamation forbidding the circulation of clipped money, and appointing certain towns and cities as places where such light money could be exchanged, within a fixed time, for that of legal weight, but being charged fourteen-pence for every pound. In the same year groats, or great sterling, were ordered to be struck.

The year 1300 is worthy of note. From 1066 to this date a penny weighed 24 grains tower (one pennyweight), so that a pound (troy weight) was the same both by weight and tale or value; the penny was now altered in weight to 23 7073 grains.

Edward III was the first king of England who struck coins bearing Di Gra, or Dei Gratia; but these words are to be read on all the great seals since William I, and were used as early as the latter end of the seventh century by Ina, king of the West Saxons, in the introduction to his laws. In this our present age of enlightenment and education these words are considered by some nervous and superstitious people to be an indispensable part of the coin.

Mention is made of Edward III permitting florins de Escu and florins of Florence to be current. In 1343 a proclamation was issued for three sorts of gold money to be coined; one with two leopards, to be current at six shillings, and equal in weight to two petit florins of Florence; the other two to be of one leopard and one helm, the half and quarter in value of the "two leopards" respectively. Some authorities give as the origin of "Florin" (Latin, Flora)-the lily-which, though on the foreign, was not copied on the English florin; others say it is from the coin having been introduced by the Florentines. All these gold coins were found to be too high in their current value in relation to the silver; they were, therefore, recalled in the same year, and a new coin, with its half and quarter, was issued and declared current-the noble, maille-noble and ferling-noble (see Plate II); the noble to pass for the value of six shillings and eight-pence. These coins differed from the silver in type. While those of silver still bore the unskilled portrait, cross and pellets, these bore, for the first time, the heraldic symbols; but that is only part of the difference; the one side bears king Edward in full armour in a ship. The origin of the design is doubtful; some say the battle of Sluys gave Edward the idea, as emblematic of his supremacy by sea; others suggest that the ship is typical of the State, and Edward in full armour, the king