The numismatic chronicle and journal of the Royal Numismatic Society

HAVE WE NO IRISH COINS OF EDWARD VI. ? 49
of officers as in the English mint." (State Papers, vol. iii.
p. 581, quoted Num. Chron. N.S. vol. xix. p. 178.)
On the 28th of January, 1547, Henry died, and in the
second year of his successor (1548), "Sir Edward Bellyngham,
Lord Justice, by the King's command erected
a mint in the castle " of Dublin.
This we are told in Ruding. 1
I do not consider we are
to understand from it that the Irish mint began thence-
forth to coin money; because, together with this statement
we must read another, which is to be found in a
note in the first volume (p. 318), and the information it
affords conflicts with any such idea. It is an extract from
entries in the books of the Privy Council, " dated at "West-
minster, the viii day of July, 1550," and runs thus :
" For as much as the kinge's ma Ues continuall chardges in
Ireland did drawe the coine of this realme awaye, con-
sideringe moreovere that without erecting a minte there,
those charges might ill be borne ; it was not only agreed
that tlie minte should be sett up againe, but also that it
should be lett out to farme for xij monthes at the condi-
tiones followinge " (" ArchaGologia," vol. xviii. p. 137.)
Now, had the first of these statements implied more
than it says ; that is, had we been obliged to conclude
from it that the active working of this revived mint commenced
in Edward's second year, then I do not see how
we could understand the last statement, which relates
how this occurred in his fourth year. From some of the
abstracts of the State Papers which I am about to give, it
is quite clear that money of some kind was to be got out
of the mint as early as November, 1548 ;
but it does not
follow that it was money which had been produced in the
1 " Annals of the Coinage of Great Britain," vol. ii. p. 224.
VOL. I. THIRD SERIES. H