The currency was then as it is now, a question on which a multiplicity of opinions were entertained; but the coins of the realm were in those days tampered with by the State to an extent sufficient to afford even a chancellor of the exchequer of our own time an excuse for attempting to mulct the sovereign of one per cent. of its gold to cover the cost of coinage and provide a seigniorage for the Crown. In 1549 a pound weight of silver was coined into 7_l._ 4_s._, out of which the Crown retained 4_l._ for seigniorage and cost of minting, paying the merchant only 3_l._ 4_s._ for his silver.[113] Of course the prices of all articles rose to the level of the metallic value of the current coin, and that, too, in the teeth of the numerous statutes passed to regulate prices, and in defiance of proclamations forbidding sales except on conditions specified by law. Indeed, coins of the realm became mere tokens, and though convenient enough for the people at home, were of no value abroad beyond that of the amount of pure metal they might happen to contain; hence exchanges with foreign countries ceased to be any longer intelligible. The measure of corn worth formerly, on an average, ten shillings and sixpence, sold in 1551 for six shillings and eightpence, and rose to thirty shillings in the following year. [Sidenote: Corruption of the government.] [Sidenote: Recommendation of W. Lane to Sir W. Cecil,] To make matters worse, there were in those days men high in authority who reaped pecuniary advantages from the debasement of the currency. Indeed those of the Lords of the Council who had provided funds for the suppression of the rebellion adopted the following extraordinary if not nefarious means of repaying themselves. They addressed a warrant to the Master of the Mint, setting forth that “Whereas our well-beloved councillor, Sir William Herbert, in suppressing the rebels had not only spent the great part of his plate and substance, but also had borrowed for the same purpose great sums of money for which he remained indebted,” and requesting that the officers of the Mint might receive at his hands two thousand pounds weight in bullion in fine silver, the said bullion to be coined and printed into money current according to the established standard, the money so made to be delivered to the said Sir William Herbert, with all such profits as would otherwise have gone to the Crown after deducting the expenses of the coining.[114] By this transaction Sir William realised a profit of 6710_l._, and as similar privileges were extended to the remaining Lords of the Council, and other favoured persons about court, more than 150,000_l._ worth of base silver coins were thus thrown at once upon the market, producing, as might have been anticipated, numerous commercial complications and disasters. By such means as these monarchs, as well as councillors, at that period of English history paid their debts. Edward VI. records