Under Henry IV the sterling had fallen to 15 grains; under Edward IV it fell to 12 grains, at which weight it stood till Henry VIII brought it down to 10-1/2 grains, and also debased it to only one-third its weight of silver. His father had coined shillings, hitherto only a money of account; his own mint continued this coinage, but got 48 of them, instead of 20, from the Troy pound of silver, and subsequently by debasement nearly 150. In Edward VI’s reign the Protector Somerset continued this system, but, at his fall, efforts were made by the Council to restore honesty to the coinage, at least as regards the shillings and crowns. The pennies remained debased until the wisdom of Elizabeth restored the standard, and since that time our silver coinage has remained of true standard and at the weight of 7-1/2 grains for each penny value, or one-third of its weight at the time of the Norman Conquest. The Scots silver coinage fell much lower than that of England; by the time of the Union it had fallen to 1/36, the pound Scots being worth 20 pence English, instead of 20 shillings. It is curious that the kings, so ready to make a profit by lowering the silver coins, appear to have disdained the evident profit of a copper coinage. Penalties were repeatedly threatened by statute against the copper coins which necessity of ‘change’ caused to be made or imported. These were unlawful coins called galyhalpens, saskyns, dodekyns and dotkins (probably Scottish ‘doits’). James I granted a patent for the making of copper farthings. Halfpennies were first coined in Charles II’s time, but it was not till near the end of George III’s reign that a copper penny was struck, probably because the tradition of the silver penny weighing 32 wheat-corns, albeit shrunken, was against the penny being other than silver. The penny was at first a full ounce of copper. Twopenny pieces were also struck weighing two ounces. The present bronze coinage was made in 1860 after the example of the bronze coinage of Napoleon III, the reformer of the French currency; it was he who established a gold standard in France, hitherto a ‘silver country.’ A bronze penny not much worn weighs 1/3 oz., the halfpenny 1/5 oz. The latter is one inch in diameter. The silver penny of early Plantagenet times was the size of the present sixpence but thinner, so that, at the full weight of 22-1/2 grains, it was slightly heavier than our threepenny piece = 21·8 grains. It bore the effigy of the king with ‘Henricus Rex’ or suchlike inscription; on the reverse was a cross, with pellets or other ornaments in the intervals, and the name of the moneyer and city, as ‘Edmund on Lin(coln).’ The cross gave rise to the idea that it indicated where the penny could be broken or cut into halfpence or farthings. Doubtless it was so cut where change was scarce; and the first silver farthing was coined by Edward I, 1279, to prevent this cutting up of the pence, but equally with a cross.