The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

224 HENRY SYMONDS.
was to be coined to the use and behoof of the King. And
that whereas Pirry had made suit for an allowance in respect
of losses formerly incurred by him in providing and coining
bullion within the Irish mint, the King in satisfaction of the
petition granted to him that he should coin 1500 11)S of fine
silver into sixpences as aforesaid, to his own use and without
accounting to the King ; that he should provide the bullion
and pay all costs and charges of coining the same, and that
he should not buy fine silver at a price higher than the mint
in the Tower was paying at the date of the indenture that
;
he should make a privy mark on all monies coined to his own
use and to the King's use, and should bring from beyond the
seas into England so much bullion as he should have taken
from England to Ireland to be coined to his own use.
(Original deed, S. P. Ireland, Edw. VI, vol. 4.)
Sir John Evans dismisses this contract in three
lines, possibly because he had not seen it and so
failed to appreciate its significance, while Archdeacon
Pownall does not notice it at all, although he might
have found therein a clue to the enigma which he was
trying
to solve. I confess that the contents of the
document puzzled me more than a little, on first
reading them without any knowledge of the surrounding
circumstances, but I believe that the true
meaning may be thus interpreted. We should, I
think, read the document in the light of two English
decrees which are germane to the subject ; the earlier
one reduced Edward's coins of debased silver to half
their original face values, the later edict cried down
all the Irish moneys to the current values of the
English coinage. That being so, and having regard
to the fact that the weight of this Irish "sixpence"
of the 1550 and 1551
corresponds with the weight
English shillings (72 in the Ib. = 80 gr. each), I have
no hesitation in identifying the shilling dated 1552,
and bearing the mint-mark harp, with Pirry's Si
six-