Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/79

] and quarter-nobles, originally equivalent to guineas (the exact value of a noble in Henry IV.'s reign was 21s. 1$1/2$d.), half-guineas, and quarter-guineas, or dollars of 5s. 3d. The silver coins were groats, half-groats, and pennies. But it must be remembered that all these coins were of ten times the intrinsic value of our present money; so that the labourer who in the fifteenth century received 1$1/2$d. per day, received as much as fifteen pence of the present money.





But the great historical fact regarding the money of this age was its continual adulteration, and consequent depreciation. Our monarchs, involved in great wars, while their crown lands had melted away into the hands of their barons, and these barons had ceased to yield their proper feudal services, were reduced to the greatest extremities for money, and fell, one after another, into the hopeless practice of endeavouring to make more money out of the little they had. They vainly expected that if the name and dimensions of a coin remained the same, the public would permit it to be treated as of the same value. But they soon found that if a gold coin was so alloyed that it only contained ten shillings' worth of real gold in it instead of twenty, it would only fetch ten shillings' worth of goods; in other words, all articles to be purchased rose to double the old price.



The original English pound contained a real Tower pound of silver, weighing 5,400 grains troy. Of this pound of silver were coined 240 pennies, then the largest coins in use. That was the money of England from the Conquest to Edward III.'s time. He coined 270 pennies out of a pound, weighing twenty instead of twenty-two and a-half grains each; and he coined groats weighing, instead of ninety grains, only seventy grains. Henry V. again reduced the value of the coin, and to such a degree that out of the pound, instead of 21s. 1$1/2$d. he made 30s. His money was, therefore, of one-third less value than that of Edward III., and was found to purchase one-third less commodities. Notwithstanding this, Edward IV. again reduced the value of the currency by coining 37s. 6d. out of the pound. Besides the nobles, half and quarter nobles of his predecessors, Edward coined angels and half-angels, or angelets, the angel being 6s. 8d. of the silver money of that time.





The kings of Scotland pursued the same useless course of depreciating their currency, by which, instead of benefiting themselves, they extremely diminished the real revenues of the crown. Both they and the chief barons, as they were the chief promoters of the diminution of the weight and value of the coin, so they were by far the greatest sufferers by the measure. They received the same number of pounds from their subjects and vassals in all the fixed annual payments due to them, but the pounds did not contain the same quantity of silver, and would not purchase the same quantity of goods with those in the original stipulation. The king and nobilty discovered their error, and time after time issued orders and Acts of Parliament to compel the people to estimate their spurious coins at the same value as the unadulterated ones, but in vain. Nature and the eternal proportions of things are above all kings and all human laws. James III. of Scotland coined copper money, and one of the reasons assigned in the Act ordaining this coinage, is that it is "for almons' deid to be done to pure folk," that is, people thought the smallest coin in use was too much to give in alms—they must have something of less value for that purpose. He also coined a still inferior money called black money, the small tinge of silver mixed with the copper giving it that colour. The price of all articles at that time of day, and sums paid for salaries, show that everything then was far cheaper than at present, in proportion to the nominal value of money. A cow was 7s., but ten times that value, or £3 10s., would not buy half a cow now. A goose was 3d., equal to 2s. 6d. of our money, but 2s. 6d. would not buy a goose now-a-days. Neither could a clergyman and his family live very well on £46 a year, though £4 13s. 4d. was then thought a fair income for one. A yeoman of our time would not be very jolly on £50 a-year, though Sir John Fortescue in his day said "that £5 a-year was a fair living for a yeoman."