The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

206 HENRY SYMONDS.
before they begin to work. The sum that may be
coined by 15 Sept is 10,000 U which will occupy all the
three mints [i. e. at the Tower] for that time or near
thereabouts." In the second letter, 1 September in
the same year, "Wriothesley says that there had been
discussion concerning the making of new gold crowns
for Ireland, but the standard had not then been fixed.
In the third communication, dated 2 September, the
same writer tells Paget that he is enclosing the inden-
ture for Ireland, and that they were loth to begin until
it was signed (vol. 22, no. 231).
This correspondence goes a long way towards justi-
fying a belief that there was a coinage of harp-groats
of the 6 oz. standard in this year. I do not, however,
find any reference to such pieces in the surviving
accounts of the Tower mint, nor is the "indenture"
mentioned in the third letter now available. Still,
I think we can assign to the fourth coinage a groat
of the previous type and also marked with a Lys, but
dated "37", thus indicating
that it was struck between
22 April, 1545, and the same day in 1546. This groat
presents two innovations ;
it is the earliest instance of
a dated coin for Ireland, and it introduces a system of
dating by the regnal year (more
familiar on manu-
scripts than on coins) which was not repeated, after
Henry's thirty-eighth year, until 1663. The " 37" groat
is rare, almost as uncommon as the half-groat of the first
issue, and therefore the test by an assay has been
omitted in this case. It is possible that the insertion
of the date and other smaller changes in the dies
should be ascribed to Henry Basse, the graver at the
Tower, who had been appointed in November, 1544.
[PI. IX. 6.]