+-------------------+--------++------------------+--------+ | | Pence || | Pence | | Date. | per || Date. | per | | | Grain. || | Grain. | +-------------------+--------++------------------+--------+ | 1527 | 1.125 || 1601 | 1.626 | | 1544 (22 carats) | 1.281 || 1603 (22 carats) | 2.236 | | 1545 (20 carats) | 1.470 || 1604 | 1.655 | | 1549 (22 carats) | 1.518 || 1605 | 1.27 | | 1550 | 1.2 || 1610 | 1.856 | | 1551 (22 carats) | 1.425 || 1619 | 2.052 | | 1553 | 1.0 || 1625 | 1.851 | | 1558 | 1.5 || 1625 (22 carats) | 1.838 | | 1558 (22 carats) | 1.425 || | | +-------------------+--------++------------------+--------+ [Illustration: TABLE OF THE MOVEMENT OF GOLD & SILVER IN ENGLAND 1500-1680] The testimony of these tables is perfectly general. They establish, roughly speaking, just such an advance of price as befell the whole of Europe. They do not witness the oscillation in the coinage, and the commercial disaster due to the action of bimetallic law. For the evidence of this latter, however, there is ample store of material in the State papers of England throughout the period. The moment prices began to rise on the Continent good English gold tended to disappear and flow away, being replaced by continental coins of lower contents (or higher denomination). The stress of this practical diminution of the currency was made all the greater by the simple fact that the increasing trade which accompanied such rise of prices demanded an expanding rather than a contracting currency. [Sidenote: WOLSEY'S ADMINISTRATION OF THE MINT] The very year, therefore, 1519, which marks the commencement of the rise for the Continent generally, marks the commencement also of agitation in England with regard to the supply of the precious metals. There is preserved among the State papers at the English Record Office a paper of advice from a German of the name of Herman King to Wolsey, dating in June 1519, "How to provide bullion from Germany for this realm with the greatest profit." He advises contracting for a fixed supply of metal at a certain price, which he puts down, and adds: "If Wolsey will appoint a person to receive the money, I will engage to deliver 2000 or 4000 marks weight yearly at this price, but it must be secretly, as, if the purveyor were discovered, he would be in great danger, and the (German) princes would not suffer any silver to depart because of their own Mints."