The confusion of the Wars of the Roses, however, renders it slightly problematical how far the two successive lowerings of the coinage, which took place in 1460 and 1465 or 1470, are to be attributed to arbitrary action or to a natural process. By the recoinage of 1460 the noble was increased in weight from 108 grs. to 120 grs., and the value from 6s. 8d. to 8s. 4d., being a real appreciation of the grain of gold from .7407 to .7500 of a penny. At approximately the same date, 1464, the weight of the silver penny was lowered from 15 to 12 grs. In the succeeding recoinage of 1465 and 1470 these rates were again altered. A new gold coin, the _angel_, was instituted, weighing 80 grs., and valued at 6s. 8d., while the weight of the silver penny was left unaltered. The ratio was accordingly changed to 11.15. This was the last change of the coinage made in England before the era of the discovery of America. The internal effects which the changes had on the commerce of the time are hidden from us by the disturbing influences of the Wars of the Roses. [Sidenote: CONCLUSION OF THE FIRST PERIOD] But it is, probably, in connection with this change of the English ratio--or with some wider, general movement, acting on both countries alike--that the last monetary ordinances of Louis XI. of France, referred to above, are to be understood. These acts of conflicting policies mark the conclusion of the first period of European metallic monetary history, for no further changes were enacted previous to the close of the century and the discovery of America. As far as England was concerned, the monetary system remained comparatively unchanged till the days of Henry VII. On a review of the whole period two simple facts emerge with unmistakable plainness and import. 1. It was a period in which the commercial expanse outstripped the reinforcing supply of the precious metals, and therefore in which a real decline of prices[8] prevails. 2. The evil effects of such decline were enormously increased by shortsighted, crafty manipulation of the currency by the European rulers, and by the rough, unscientific system of the prevailing coinage and exchange rates, and by the inability of the age to understand, or even to perceive, the hidden working of two metals see-sawing against each other--acting as levers against each other--cutting each other's throats. The discovery of America corrected the fall of prices and saved Europe, but it left her rulers as deadly ignorant as before of the workings of bimetallism--to give a name to what they had not even perceived as a phenomenon, much less as a system. FOOTNOTES: