THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
but in the shield Nassau is added on an escutcheon
of pretence. In one France occupies the fourth grand
quarter, possibly through an error. The money with
the jugate busts is scarcer than that with the head of
the King. In 1696, when complaint of the bad state of
the currency had for some time been growing louder,
and Fleetwood, Bishop of Ely, author of the Chron'i-
con Preaostvm, had declaimed from the pulpit against
the injustice done thereby to the poor, William under-
took an inquiry into the matter, and in the ensuing
year appointed Sir Isaac Newton Master of the Mint,
a post which he held down to the reign of George I.
The coins of William sometimes occur in proof state.
The Maundy money is only of the jugate type and
of 1689.
Anne, the last of the Stuarts (1702-14), made no
material alteration in the monetary system. Her coin-
age, in which the star of the (Tarter takes the place of
the shield of Nassau, is divisible into two classes : that
before and that after the Union with Scotland in 1T07.
The issue of 1702, particularly the pattern guinea with
the low drapery, which was withdrawn at her Majesty's
instance, is perhaps the more desirable. The roses and
plumes found in the angles of some of the money, and
the word Vigo under the bust in other pieces, refer to
the sources whence the metal was derived : the West of
England, the Welsh mines, and the Spanish ships taken
in Vigo Ray in 1702. The suggestion of Dean Swift,
that the currency should be made what it had been in
foreign countries and anion"; the ancients from time
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