In 1358 the great fortress received a yet more illustrious prisoner. King John of France and his son Philip were taken captive by Edward the Black Prince at the battle of Poitiers, and brought to London. At first they were lodged in the Duke of Lancaster’s palace in the Savoy, then at Windsor, and apparently had a fine time with hawking and hunting and good cheer. Next year when King Edward returned to France “he made all the lordes of France, such as were prisoners, to be put into dyvers places and strange castelles, to be the more sure of them, and the Frenche Kynge was set in the Towre of London, and his yonge sonne with hym, and moche of hys pleasure and sport restrayned; for he was then straytlyer kept than he was before.” They had not a bad time of it, however, here apparently. The Scottish King had just been liberated, but there were many French nobles to make up a court for him. Next year the treaty of Bretigny restored him to his country. * * * * * Coining operations had been carried on in the Tower here ever since the Norman Conquest, if not long before. It was not, however, the only place. In the reign of Charles I there seem to have been fifteen mints, but an edict of the reign of Edward III enacted that all moneys, wherever coined, should be made uniform with those of the Tower. After the Restoration, small rolling-mills were set up in the Tower, driven by horse and water power, and a great improvement was hereby effected—milled instead of hammered coins. The workshops were between the inner and outer walls, and the road which runs between St. Thomas’s Tower and the Bloody Tower was formerly called Mint Street. In 1696 an Act was passed, calling in the old hammered coinage, to be melted down in a furnace at Westminster, and sent in ingots to the Tower, to reappear in milled form. Sir Isaac Newton, Master of the Mint, made many more improvements. In 1810 the Mint was removed outside—to Little Tower Hill, where it is at this day.