The earliest coins of the Anglo-Saxon period appear to have been rude imitations of some of the later current pieces of their Roman predecessors in our island. It seems doubtful whether at first they had a coinage of their own, the probability being that those of the Romano-Britons continued, as they naturally would, to be circulated. Some of the sceattæ bear more or less rude figures and uncouth heads and devices, some being evident imitations of the well-known type of Romulus and Remus suckled by the she-wolf, and others of equally well known types. From the sceattæ, one of our common expressions at the present is derived. The word in the singular is _sceat_ or _scæt_, and the Saxon _sc_ being pronounced soft, as _sh_, became _sheat_ or _shæt_. From this it naturally became corrupted into “shot,” and thus “paying your shot” simply meant paying your money, or clearing your reckoning, and “not having a shot in your locker,” being without money in cupboard, or purse. These early coins, some of which appear to bear Runic characters, cannot with any degree of certainty be appropriated to any kings. The penny, _penig_, _pening_, or _pending_ (said to be the diminutive of _pand_, a pledge, and also by some said to be derived from _pendere_, to weigh) is first named in the laws of Ina, king of the West Saxons, who began to reign A.D. 688. It was, as now, as has been conclusively shown, the 240th part of a pound, which weighed about 5760 grains; the weight of a penny was, therefore, 24 grains, which still in our tables constitute a “dwt.” or “pennyweight.” The generally received opinion is that the first pennies as succeeding the sceattæ; and quite independent of the stycas, were struck by Offa, king of Mercia, from A.D. 757 to 796. “When the kingdoms of the Heptarchy were united in one sovereignty,” as I have written on another occasion, “the mints were regulated by laws framed by the Wittenagemote, or Great Council of the Nation; but it was not till the time of Æthelstan (924-940), that it was appointed there should be one kind of money throughout the whole realm, and that no one should coin but in a town. According to Stow, ‘Æthelstan made, seven coining mints at Canterbury, four for the king, two for the archbishop, and one for the abbot; at Rochester three, two for the king, and one for the bishop. Besides these, in London eight, in Winchester six, in Lewes two, in Chichester one, in Hampton two, in Shaftesbury two, and in every other town one coiner.’ The coins remaining pretty well prove this, and show there were very few considerable towns without a mint; for besides those particularly mentioned in Æthelstan’s law, there are coins of Derby, Bristol, Evesham, Exeter, Gloucester, Ipswich, Lincoln, Norwich, Shrewsbury, Thetford, Wallingford, Worcester, York, and other places. The probability is that the custom of impressing on coins the name of the town of the mintage began in the early part of the reign of Æthelstan.”