Under the gradual influence of Troy weight the dwt. Tower was also divided into 24 parts or grains. It was so divided in the time of Edward III.
It must be remembered that there was absolutely no definition of Tower weight, nothing but the usual proclamation about the 32 wheat-corns, a convenient definition, as they still appeared to balance the penny when it had fallen to half its original weight.
2. The Troy Pound
The pound of Troie is mentioned in the time of Henry IV, and in the next reign goldsmiths were ordered to use la libre de Troy, though by 9 Henry V mint-rates were still stated in la libre de Tour. By 2 Henry VI the price of standard silver is fixed at 30s. la livre du Troie, which means that 12 × 30 pennies of 15 grains were being coined from a pound of 5400 grains, evidently still a Tower pound. Notwithstanding the change of name, the Troy pound was not proclaimed as the royal pound until 1527, when by 18 Henry VII ‘the pounde Towre shall be no more used, but all manner of golde and sylver shall be wayed by the pounde Troye which excedith the pound Towre in weight 3 quarters of the ounce.’ But the Troy pound had been used concurrently with the old mint-pound for a long time, and there had been two standards at the mint.
According to an anonymous writer in 1507 (quoted in Snelling’s ‘View of the Silver Coin and Coinage,’ 1762) ‘it is a right great untruth and deceit that any such pound Toweres should be occupied, for that thereby the merchant is deceived subtilly and the mint master is thereby profited.’
There is no doubt that after the conquest of England by Henry Tudor a cloud of deceit came over the coinage, deceit only ended by Elizabeth’s establishment of the coinage on an honest basis. Comparing the declaration of weights, measures, and coinage by Henry III in 1266 with that of 12 Henry VII in 1496, the latter does not show to advantage. It orders—
That every Pound contain 12 ounces of Troy weight and every ounce contain 20 sterlings and every Sterling be of the weight of 32 corns of wheat that grew in the midst of the ear according to the old law of the said land.
Meanwhile the Troy ounce of silver was being coined, not into 20, but into 40 sterlings or pennies. But each of these was supposed to weigh 32 wheat-corns just as they did when they were really 20 to the ounce, albeit a Tower ounce.
Whence came the Troy Pound?
It is probable that the name of the King’s Troy pound came from the marc of Troyes, but it is certain that the English Troy pound no more came from Troyes than the ‘pound Toweres’ came from Tours.