He was obliged, at the request of the mayors and merchants of the staple of Calais, to abolish the last unworkable ordinance just referred to, and attempted at the same time to provide a positive remedy by reviving a proclamation against the currency of silver halfpennies brought from Venice, of which three or four only were equal to one sterling in value. In 1401 the Commons complained in Parliament that nobles of Flanders were so common in England that a man could not receive a sum of 100 shillings without taking three or four such nobles, each of them more feeble than the English noble by two-pence.
A statute was accordingly passed, enacting that all money of gold and silver of the coin of Flanders and all other lands, and of Scotland, should be voided out of the land, or put to coin to the bullion.
It was all in vain. Two years later, 1403, the Commons again complained of the depletion of gold, and again a statute was passed, and so on. This futile process actually reproduces itself yearly up to 1411, when at last the question of a recoinage was fairly faced. By the ordinance for, and regulation of, the money of the realm, of that year, it was provided that, "because of the great scarcity of money at the time," the Master of the Mint should make of every pound of gold 50 nobles, and of silver 30 shillings of esterlings of old alloy.
This recoinage was carried out and finished in the third year of Henry V., 1414. Under it the
contents of the silver penny sank from 18 to 15 grs., and of the gold noble from 120 to 108 grs., the consequent change in the ratio being from 11.15, which had prevailed since 1353 to 10.33.
At this latter rate the monetary system of England remained for almost fifty years, viz. up to 1460. But, though the rate endured so long, it is not for a moment to be supposed that the ensuing period was one of repose. Within eight years of the accomplishment of the reform in the English coinage, the ratio in France was lowered to a point somewhat below the established rate in England, and with considerable variation remained lower through all the years in question, 1414-1460. In 1421 it was changed to 10.29, in 1427 to 9, in 1432 to 10.87, and in 1447 to 11.44.
The effect on England, as recorded in the complaints in Parliament, was almost parallel with that in the days of Richard. In 1414 complaints were made against the circulation of galley halfpence by the merchants of Venice. Three years later proclamation was made against the circulation of the gold monies of Flanders, called Burgundy nobles, which were of less value than the English nobles. In 1419 it was found that money was being exported "more largely, and in many other manners, than had been accustomed, to the great mischief and impoverishment of the whole realm." And in the following year the usual statute was enacted, on the petition of the Commons, commanding foreign money to
be taken as bullion. Again, two years later, 1422, the enfeebled and depreciated state of the coinage was so apparent that the collectors of the subsidy granted in that year by Parliament were instructed to accept nobles as of the denominational value of 6s. 8d. (i.e. the full value), "provided they stretched verily to the value of 5s. 8d. by weight." At the same time silver money was so scarce that "though [i.e. even if] a noble were so good of gold and weight as 6s. 8d., yet men could get no white money for it." In 1423 the Commons complained of the want of silver coins in the realm, "to the great unease and harm of the poorer people of this land," "because [says the statute, which was accordingly enacted], that silver is bought and sold uncoined at 32s. the pound of Troy, whereas the same pound is no more of value at the coin than 32s., with an abatement of 12 dens. for the coinage."
THE MONETARY TROUBLES OF HENRY VI
From the twenty-fourth chapter of the statute of 1429 it appears, quite consonantly, "that the merchant aliens had of late introduced a custom of refusing to take silver, as they were wont, for their merchandises, and of taking only gold nobles, half-nobles, and farthings, which, from time to time, they carried out of the realm into other foreign countries, where they were changed to their increase and forged into other coins, so that they gained in the alloy of every noble twenty pence, against the tenor of the statutes, etc., and to the prejudice of the King and realm. Therefore the King, willing to provide a