Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/158

156 of this earliest English coinage of gold are now known to exist.

Soon after the accession of Edward I. the country was again found to be inundated with base or light money, consisting chiefly of pieces fabricated on the continent, and known, from their impresses, by the names of mitres, lionines, pollards, crockards, rosaries, staldings, steepings, and eagles,—some being imitations of English money, others professing to be foreign coins. Various laws were made both against the importation of this counterfeit money, and against the clipping of the proper coinage of the realm. The severity with which these crimes were visited upon the Jews in particular has been already recorded. Edward himself, however, in the latter part of his reign began the pernicious practice of depreciating the coin by diminishing its legal weight. In 1301 he issued a coinage of pennies, of which 243 (instead of 240, as formerly) were coined out of the pound of silver. In 1279 Edward had issued a new silver coin in imitation of one which had been introduced in France, being of the value of four pennies, and called a gross or groat, that is, a great penny. This coinage of groats seems to have been a small one, but some specimens are still extant.

No coins of Edward II. are certainly known to exist, though it is possible that some of those that have been attributed to his father may be of his coinage; for it was still usual to omit on the legend the numerical distinction of the king's name.

Edward III., in 1344, issued no fewer than six different gold coins,—namely, by one coinage, pieces marked with two leopards to pass for six shillings, others of half that weight and value marked with one leopard, and others marked with a helmet of half the value of the last; and, by a second, nobles of the value of six shillings and eight pence, and halves and quarters of nobles. The second coinage was made necessary by the refusal of the people to take the coins first issued at the value placed upon them. This king also carried the depreciation of grandfather had done, by