“Before the reign of James I. nothing beyond pennies and halfpennies in silver appear to have been attempted to supply the poor with a currency. In 1611 Sir Robert Cotton propounded a scheme for a copper coinage; this was not, however, carried out. A scheme to enrich the king produced the farthing token, weighing six grains, and producing 24s. 3d. for the pound weight of copper; half the profit was to be the king’s and the other half the patentee’s. The first patent was granted to Baron Harrington of Exton, Rutlandshire, April 10, 1613, and a Proclamation was issued May 19, 1613, forbidding the use of traders’ tokens in lead, copper, or brass. The new coin was to bear, on the one side, the King’s title, ‘Jaco. D. G. Mag. Bri., two sceptres through a crown;’ on the reverse, ‘Fra. et. Hib. Rex., a harp crowned.’ The mint mark, a rose. A Proclamation was published June 4, 1625, prohibiting any one from counterfeiting this coin. Upon the death of Lord Harrington, in 1614, the Patent was confirmed to Lady Harrington and her assigns; subsequently it was granted to the Duke of Lennox and James, Marquis of Hamilton, and on the 11th of July 1625 to Frances, Duchess Dowager of Richmond and Lennox, and Sir Francis Crane, Knight, for seventeen years, the patentees paying to the King one hundred marks yearly. By a Proclamation issued in 1633, the counterfeiters of these tokens were, upon conviction, to be fined £100 apiece, to be set on the pillory in Cheapside, and from thence whipped through the streets to Old Bridewell, and there kept to work; and when enlarged, to find sureties for their good behaviour. On the 3rd of August 1644 the Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the City of London petitioned the House of Commons against the inconvenience of this coin, and the hardship suffered by the poor in consequence. No farthing tokens being issued during the Commonwealth, private persons were under the necessity of striking their own tokens. The practice being, however, contrary to law, was subsequently prohibited by a Proclamation issued August 16, 1672. It further appears, by an advertisement in the _London Gazette_, No. 714, September 23, 1672, that an office called the ‘Farthing Office’ was opened in Fenchurch Street, near Mincing Lane, for the issue of these coins on Tuesday in each week, and in 1673–4 an order was passed to open the office daily. These measures not proving effectual to prevent private coinage of tokens, another Proclamation was issued on October 17, 1673, and another on December 12, 1674. These farthing tokens encountered the contempt and scorn of all persons to whom they were tendered, as being of the smallest possible value. Sarcastic allusions were made to them by dramatists, poets, and wits. ‘Meercroft,’ in Ben Jonson’s _Devill is an Asse_, Act ii. sc. 1, played in 1616, alludes to this coin and its patentee” (_Index to Remem._ pp. 89, 90, _note_).