The right of declaring at what nominal value the coins of a country shall pass is reckoned by Sir Matthew Hale " inter Jura Majestatis" (' Pleas of the Crown,' vol. i, chapter xvii (Anglo-Indian Banking)), but the enhancing or debasing of the standard fineness is considered illegal by Sir William Blackstone (' Commentaries,' book i, ch. vii). It appears from the treatise of Le Blanc, already mentioned (p. 156), that a tax called "Monetagium " was voluntarily introduced by the French to induce the king not to exercise his right of debasing the coin.

* The byzant and the florence each contained 1/8 of an ounce of gold, and were therefore nearly equivalent to our half-sovereign. The florence, especially, was for a considerable period in high repute in Europe, and, according to Le Blanc (p. 154), became for some time the name of all gold coins. It was afterwards made of silver, and the silver florence or florin was till lately in many countries, and is still in Austria, the unit of value.

+ The carat was originally an Abyssinian weight. It is literally a bean, the fruit of an Abyssinian tree, called Kuara. This bean from the time of its being gathered varies very little in its weight, and seems to have been in the earliest ages a weight for gold in Africa. In India it is used as a weight for diamonds, etc. - See ' Bruce's Travels,' vol. vii, p. 174 of the 1805 edition.

+ The word penny, or its French equivalent denier, seems to have been at this time a general term for coin of any metal.

§ The terms "angel" and "crown" gold arose from the fact that the "angel" (so termed from the figure of an angel on its obverse) was made of new standards were in use simultaneously for more than a century. In 1543 Henry VIII invented an intermediate standard of 23 carats fine, and four years later Edward VI issued coins only 20 carats fine, this being the most debased standard ever authorised in this country. In 1550 Edward VI raised the gold coinage to the "new standard" (22 carats fine), and in 1553 Mary finally restored it to the "old standard." In 1576 Elizabeth's coins were 23 carats 3 1/4 grs. fine, and in 1593 she re-adopted the new standard. The old standard was again authorised by James I in 1605, and both old and new by Charles I in 1626; but in 1670 Charles II adopted the new standard solely, and no change has since then taken place.

The Saxon* standard of silver coin was, as we have already seen, composed of 11 oz. 2 dwts. of silver to 18 dwts. of alloy,t and with the exception of a short, but very remarkable period of debasement and of one trifling the old standard, while the "crown" was introduced by Henry VIII as a coin of the new standard.

* William the Conqueror, as remarked by Ruding (vol. i, p. 146), wisely abstained from any alteration of the national currency, which remained unchanged for nearly two centuries after the battle of Hastings.

+ In the treatise of Le Blanc already quoted, p. 166, we find that the old English pennies were of true fineness, and were received by foreign states as equivalent to one dwt. of standard silver. And it may be noticed that, though the English coinage has been greatly debased, yet foreign countries have managed to keep ahead of us in this respect, and, indeed, the depreciation of their coin has often supplied English debasements with a plausible excuse. Thus, when the Scotch coinage was debased in order to pay the ransom of David Bruce, a similar change shortly followed in England, so that the previous uniformity of the two currencies might be maintained. The Scotch pound in tale, which was originally, like the English, identical with the pound weight of standard silver, is now only 1/36 of what it was; and the French "livre," which also once represented the same weight, is now 1/74 of its old value. In the same way the Dutch "skilling" and the French "sou" are now far less valuable than the English "shilling." The Spanish " maravedi" (originally a Moorish coin) in 1220 weighed 84 grains of fine gold, and was worth about 14s. of our money; it is now a small copper coin, barely worth 1/6 of an English penny. The "florence," formerly a gold coin worth ten shillings, has become a silver coin worth twenty pence; and the Portuguese " reis," once the unit of value in that country, is now equivalent to 27/401 of a penny.

deviation in the reign of Elizabeth, it has continued the same to the present day. The important period to which we refer commenced in the 34th year of the reign of Henry VIII, who, amongst other devices for recruiting his impoverished exchequer, debased the gold coinage as already stated, and also the silver coinage to 10 oz. fine. A further debasement of the standard to 8 oz. fine for shillings and sixpences was sanctioned by Edward VI in 1550, while for groats and smaller coins the pound of 12 oz. contained only 4 oz. of silver, and this was followed in 1553 by an issue of sixpences containing 75 per cent. of alloy. The coinage was restored by Mary to 11 oz. fine, a standard which had the great advantage of an exact correspondence with the new standard of gold. The original standard was, however, resumed by Elizabeth in 1559, and, with the exception of a reduction of 1 dwt. in 1576* which did not long continue, this has since remained the standard of the country.

The debasement of silver coins has, as before remarked, chiefly proceeded in the manner first mentioned above, and we prefer to notice them first, because the changes in the value of the gold coinage have as a rule immediately followed the debasement of the silver currency. The following is a table of the nine debasements of the silver coinage under this head.

* This was probably made as a partial defrayment of the expenses of coinage.-Ruding, vol. i, p. 91.

Thus the total debasement of silver coin in little more than three centuries was 65 1/2 per cent.

The Act of 1816, by which the Troy Pound is now divided into 66 shillings, does not concern the above list, inasmuch as the present regulations have come into force since, and are consequent upon the abolition of silver as a standard value in England, a subject of which it will be necessary to treat in its proper place.