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268 called the Sovereign, or sometimes the Rose Rial, or the Double Rose Noble, of the value of twenty shillings; and there were also half sovereigns and double sovereigns. As these gold coins, however, are exceedingly scarce, the writer last quoted thinks it probable that "they were struck upon extraordinary occasions, only in the nature of medals, and, perhaps, were first coined in honour of the king's coronation, as his figure thereon, in the attitude of that solemnity, seems to intimate." "We are told," he adds, "such were distributed at the coronation of Queen Mary, and sovereigns were coined in every reign afterwards to King James I. inclusive."

The state of Henry VIII. 's money, Leake observes, was, like his mind and humour, very changeable and uncertain. At first he observed the same standard as his father, but he afterwards debased both his gold and his silver coins, being, Camden says, the first king of England that mixed the money with brass, or rather copper. Some alloy, however, was of course used before his time; and the fact seems to be that he merely made a very considerable increase in the quantity, employing the copper not merely to harden the coin and make it fit for use, but to diminish its intrinsic value. According to the tables drawn up by Folkes from the sure authority of the indentures made with the Masters of the Mint, it appears that, whereas, hitherto, the minted pound had consisted of eleven ounces two pennyweights of silver, and only eighteen pennyweights of alloy, Henry, in 1543, changed the proportions to ten ounces of silver and two ounces of alloy. Two years after he reduced the amount of silver to six ounces, or only one-half of the entire metal; and in 1546 he adopted the still more monstrous proportion of only four ounces of silver with eight of alloy. The pieces struck in both these last-mentioned coinages can only be justly described by the name of base money. But in addition to this debasement of the coinage Henry very materially depreciated it; that is to say, he coined the pound of silver or mixed metal into a greater nominal amount of money than it had previously been made to produce. Instead of