The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

222 HENRY SYMONDS.
In January, 1551-2, Eecorde was sent to London
to express in person the Lord -Deputy's ideas as to the
reformation of the coinage, and he took with him a
report by the assay-master on the fineness of a number
of Irish coins struck by earlier kings. There is an
interesting list of assays vouched by Wm. "Williams,
but the details and the necessary explanations would
be too long for inclusion in this paper. The Lord-
Deputy was then in a despairing frame of mind, and
remarked that " yt ys come to the shoote anker ".
(S. P. Ireland, Edw. VI, vol. 4.)
THE THIRD COINAGE, 1552.
The activities of the mint in Dublin were suspended,
as we have seen, in May or July, 1551, and the
moneyers were not again employed until the end of
June, 1552. Before I describe the third and last
issue, the circumstances which led up to the re-
opening of the mint should be briefly stated. There
had been a desire that the respective currencies of
the two islands should be equal in value, and the
King's Journal gives
the first hint as to the method of
effecting it. On 18 May, 1552, Edward writes in his
diary that "it was appointed mony should be cried
down in Ireland, after a pay which was of mony at
Midsummer next; in the mean season the thing to
be kept secret and close ". A second entry by the
King on 10 June, 1552, says
that "whereas it was
agreed that there should be a pay now made to Ireland
of 5000 and then the mony to be cried down, it was
appointed that 3000 weight which I had in the Tower
should be carried thither and coined at 3 denar fine ;