British period, the reign of Cunobeline was first
issued among us less than two centuries ago, in
Charles the Second's time, to be current under
certain limitations. British money of Cæsar's
time was coined on brass or iron. The Anglo-
Saxons and the Anglo-Danes coined silver and
brass, but the Anglo-Normans rejected the brass
and coined only silver, till, in the reign of Henry
the Third, gold was introduced into the Mint.
For several centuries there were no coins but of
gold and silver. For a long while the lowest
silver coin was a penny, and that in times when
the penny was equal to about a shilling in the
money of the present day. The poorer English
were not supplied with the halfpennies and
farthings needed in their small daily traffic, till the
reing of Edward the First. After this, silver
rose in value, and the farthings dwindled in size
until they went out altogether, in the reign of
Edward the Sixth. James the First struck farthing
tokens of copper and brass, but they were
worth so much less than a farthing, that they
were little used, and not long current. The first
real copper money was coined by Charles the
Second in sixteen 'sixty-five, but that was not
made current; the true beginning of our copper
currency, though made in the same reign,
dates seven years later. The same king made
also an experiment in coining tin, and the
poverty of James the Second drove him into
endeavours to coin money out of old gun-metal
and pewter. That was not what we understand
by sterling money, though what it is that we
exactly do mean by sterling money antiquaries
are not very sure. The word esterling, or
sterling, is not found to have been applied to our
coinage before the fourth year of the reign of
Henry the Second. If it was then first used, it
probably was not derived from the Saxon steore,
as steering, guiding, or regulation money. A
very old writer said, that as florins were called
from the Florentines, our sterling money was
named from certain easterling workmen from
the north-east of Europe, who were employed
upon the regulation of the coinage. At any
rate, the word esterling, or sterling, was taken
all over the Continent as a phrase for English
money, and the fineness of our silver coinage
expressed by it has been maintained now for
six centuries.

The first gold coins were of pure gold, that is
to say, twenty-four carats fine. A carat,
according to one derivation, was the bean of an
Abyssinian tree called kuara. This "carob
bean " equals in weight four grains of wheat
from the midst of the ear, another ancient
standard. The ripe bean varied so little after
gathering, that it was used as a weight in Africa
for gold, and in India for diamonds. But in
estimating gold, the word carat is used
theoretically. Any piece of gold is said to consist
of twenty-four parts or carats: which may be
all gold, in which case it is gold of twenty-four
carats: or which may contain one, two, three,
four, or more twenty-fourth parts of alloy, in
which cases it is said to be gold of twenty-three,
twenty-two, twenty-one, twenty, or fewer carats
fineness. For example, six parts of alloy in the
twenty-four, leaves eighteen parts of gold; that
is expressed by saying that it is gold of eighteen
carats. The twenty-four carat gold money
established by Henry the Third was reduced a
carat in fineness by Edward the Third. Henry
the Eighth coined gold as low as twenty carats,
and made also twenty-two carat crowns of gold,
which established a standard of crown gold.
That is the degree of fineness which has been
adopted since tlie reign of Charles the Second
as tne sole standard of the gold money of
England. On many Anglo-Saxon coins, the name of
the coiner or moneyer answerable to the king
and country for the produce of his Mint was
stamped, in addition to that of the sovereign;
and in the early Anglo-Norman times, when
money was sometimes found to be debased, the
moneyers were punished. But they had special
privileges and exemptions from taxation, jury
service, and distraints: with the one disability,
that they were not free to leave the kingdom
without special license.

When in those old times, besides the
paramount Mint in the Tower there were lesser
mints in different parts of the country, the
maintenance of uniformity and the sole charge
of the mystery of the dies was entrusted to an
officer called the Cuneator. This office, like
some offices connected with the Royal Forests,
was hereditary, though it did not, like the hereditary
rangerships, continue to our time. When
the subordinate mints were abolished, the office
passed out of use, and, probably dying out with
some family, passed also out of existence.

Though Edward the Third was driven by want
of money to dilute the coinage, he ought to have
been ashamed of his want when he had such a
mine as Ashmole says he had in Raymond Lully,
who had been brought into England by Cremer,
Abbot of Westminster, and agreed to make the
king rich by his art, on condition of his making
war against the Turks. Edward failing in his
promise, Lully, tradition says, refused to go
on with his work, and was put in the Tower.
But what money he coined was "made by the
magic of alchemy, and mystically inscribed on
the reverse with a Latin text round a cross
fleury, with lioneux, reminding those pharisees,
the wise unbelievers in alchemic gold, when they
had a piece of it in their hands, that Jesus passed
out unseen through the midst of them." John
le Rous and Master William de Dalby, reputed
to be able to make silver by the art of alchemy,
the same King Edward ordered his officers to
find and bring to him, safely and honourably
if possible, but forcibly if needful. And in
the reign of Henry the Fourth it was by statute
solemnly "ordained and established that none
from henceforth shall use to multiply gold or
silver, nor use the craft of multiplication; and
if any the same do, that he incur the pain of
felony in this case." It was too horrible to
think that any one should use alchemical knowledge
in base advantage over his neighbours, and
while they toiled and moiled for earnings hardly
won, had only to put a pound into the pot and