THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
would take to heart in choosing- his wife and his officers.
The mints at this period were London, Southwark,
York, Bristol, and Canterbury. That of London was
at Durham House in the Strand, and was under the
control of Sir William Sharrington.
The rule of Mary and of Mary and Philip brought
no noticeable accessions to the coinage beyond a re-
puted half-crown, but rather a mezzo-scudo, of Neapo-
litan origin, with both their portraits ; the shilling with
the vis-a-vis busts has become famous from the couplet
in Hud'ibras, but it was merely the common Spanish
tvpe. The rarest coin of Mary alone is the half-groat;
the pennies are not common. The half-soyereign of
1553 is the first published one with a date.
The volume of English currency had now become,
as we see, both large and important, and some of the
types found admirers and copyists abroad. At Gorin-
chen, Zwolle, Campen, and elsewhere in the Nether-
lands excellent imitations of the gold nobles of Edward
III. and IV., and of the sovereign of Mary, were
struck, with the substitution of Dutch legends and arms.
The Campen sovereign is far scarcer than the English
original, not more than three or four being known.
The lengthened government of Elizabeth was chiefly
distinguished by the improvement of the standard, the
debased coinage of the two previous reigns being called
in and sent over to Ireland ; by the institution of two
standards of gold—standard and crown ; by the first
experiment in milled money ; by certain subsidiary
changes, as the withdrawal of the farthing and the
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