COINS ENGRAVED FOR RICHARD SAINTHILL'S OLLA PODRIDA, WITH THEIR WEIGHTS AND PROPRIETORS.

PLATE 24.-IRISH COINS OF HENRY THE SIXTH, HENRY THE Seventh, and HENRY THE EIGHTH.

COINAGES OF HENRY THE SECOND.

FROM THE ANNALS OF ROGER DE HOVEDEN; TRANSLATED BY HENRY T. RILEY, Esq. B.A.-LONDON, BOHN, 1853.

Page 252.—“ In the year of grace 1149, being the fourteenth year of the reign of King Stephen, Henry Duke of Normandy came into England with a great army, on which many castles were surrendered to him, and a great number of towns. He also coined new money, which they called 'the Duke's money;' and not himself only, but all the influential men, both bishops, as well as earls and barons, coined their own money. But from the time when the Duke came over he rendered null the coin of most of them."

If it can be ascertained what towns were in the possession of the Duke of Normandy at this time, and if there are coins of these towns inscribed on the obverse with only "Henricus," such coins, at present appropriated to Henry the First, may be "the Duke's money.”

Page 255.-"In the year of grace 1156, being the second year of the reign of Henry, son of the Empress Matilda, the said King returned from Normandy to England, and caused nearly all the castles which had been erected in England in the time of King Stephen to be demolished, and issued a new coinage, which was the only one received and current throughout the realm.”

This coinage is probably one of those attributed to Henry the First, with a type similar to one of Stephen's. An attentive consideration of types and workmanship will generally enable a numismatist to connect the early and later coinages of many Saxon and Norman kings with those of their predecessors and successors.

Page 531, A.D. 1180.-"In the same year Henry King of England, the father, made a new coinage in England, and fined the moneyers for the baseness of the old coinage."

It will be remarked that, besides being "a new coinage," probably as to type, it was to remedy and supersede the existing bad and

base coinage; circumstances which leave no doubt on my mind that the Tealby hoard, assigned by Mr. Combe to Henry the Second, is the coinage mentioned by Hoveden under A.D. 1180.

Mr. Combe says, "it is deserving of attention that the weights of them, though apparently regulated by a pair of sheers, were adjusted with extraordinary accuracy; so that 5,127 weighed 19 lbs. 6 oz. 5 dwts.; only 14 dwts. 18 grains less than the proper weight, which divided amongst the whole number makes each coin deficient no more than about of a grain."-Archæologia, vol. 18, p. 6.

The extraordinary precision and accuracy of the weights of the Tealby hoard, and the goodness of the silver, are all in accordance with a coinage which was a reform of the national currency; and, certainly, no such accuracy of weight attaches to the best preserved specimens of the short-cross pennies of Henry the Third that I have met with.

INDENTURE OF THE NINTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF HENRY THE FIFTH FOR COINING GOLD AND SILVER MONEYS AT LONDON AND CALAIS :

AND INDORSEMENT OF THE SAME, IN THE FIRST YEAR OF HENRY THE SIXTH, EXTENDING ITS POWERS TO THE MINTS OF YORK AND BRISTOL.

AMONG the few tangled skeins in English numismatics are the coins struck in the reigns of Henry the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth. We have indeed some coins which we can certainly appropriate to Henry the Fourth, and more that are unquestionably Henry the Sixth's; but I am not aware that as yet any clue has been ascertained that enables us to lay a finger on an English coin, and say authoritatively "this belongs to Henry the Fifth." It has struck me that our only chance of ever clearing up the uncertainty at present hanging over the great bulk of the coins struck by these three sovereigns, is by very carefully examining all the indentures and other records relating to the coinage of England that are in existence of their reigns, say from the deposition of Richard the Second, 29 September, 1399, to the dethronement of Henry the Sixth, March 4, 1461, and there may possibly be particulars respecting their types, inscriptions, or mint-marks, which would so particularise a coin as to decide the reign in which it was struck. Now this proof might be obtained directly, as when the coin was ordered to be so and so; or, indirectly, as when it was determined that it was not to be so and so, as in a preceding and referred-to indenture. Again, the coin now ordained and covenanted to be made might be "depicted in the margent," as we see it on the indenture of Edward the Fourth, A.D. 1483, published in this volume.

I therefore carefully looked through Ducarel and Ruding, and noted such rolls in the Tower referred to by them as seemed to afford any chance of assisting such an inquiry. But what can a poor pilgarlick, fixed like a limpet to its rock, effect at this distance from the repositories of the indentures? A friend (Major Moore of the