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money was captured in England, and there is little doubt but that no small amount of the base money was manufactured there.28

1564. An act of Secret Council preserved among the Harleian MSS. forbids gold and silver to be taken from the mines in the country, except to the Mint, and fixes the price to be given for it at £10 the ounce for the gold, and 23s. the ounce for the silver.

In the Treasurer's accounts for February, 1564,29 we obtain a curious and interesting note of the salaries payable to the officials in the Scottish Mint upwards of three centuries ago.

"Item, to Daniel Forrest, generale of the Cunzehous, for his ordinar be the space of this moneth, xijl xs.

Item, to Andro Hendersone, wardane of the said Cunzehous, for his ordinar be the said space, iiijl iijs iiiid.

Item, to Maister John Balfour, comptrollar wardane, for his ordinar be the said space, iijl vjs viijd.

Item, to James Gray, sincher of the Irinis, for his ordinar be the said space, vl.

Item, to James Mossman, assayer, for his ordinar be the said space, iijl vjs viiid."

These payments are repeated for several months, with sometimes the addition of £3 6s. 8d. to James Gray, for "tempering of the irnis ilk moneth."

1565. The year 1565 is remarkable for the first introduction into the Scottish currency of the large silver pieces known as "ryals." These were to pass for thirty shillings, and were to weigh one ounce troy (French standard). The act of the Privy Council authorising the issue of these pieces is given by Cardonnel in his preface.30

28 Col. State Papers, vol. i. p. 194.

29 MSS. Reg. Ho., Edin.

30 P. 18; Appendix, p. 1. Some doubts have been thrown upon these extracts, found in Keith's Appendix. This one is found, however, in the Reg. Sec. Con. Acta, vol. 1563–7, p. 151.

A much rarer type of the same kind was minted earlier in the year. This has the King and Queen face to face on the obverse, and bears Henry's name before Mary's. It has generally been supposed to have been either a medal or a pattern piece; 31 but in a letter from Thomas Randolphe, the English ambassador, to Sir William Cecil, dated in December of this year,32 he states that "ther were lately certayne pieces of monie coyned wt. both their faces 'Hen. and Maria;' these are called in and other framed, as here I sende yr. H.; one wayinge v testons in sū and and current for vj: "-which shows that these were really in circulation, though evidently to a very small extent.

About this period a great quantity of false and light money was imported into the kingdom, and strict measures were in consequence taken by the Privy Council in the matter.

1566. In June, 1566, it is recorded in the minutes that, as certain persons have been apprehended within the burgh of Aberdeen, who have acknowledged that they brought false money from Flanders into the country, two commissioners, Robert Crichton of Elyoke, and James Millar, Depute Justice Clerk, are appointed to go to Aberdeen, and to take all possible means to discover the acts of the case. In the beginning of the following year, Andrew Murray, burgess of Perth, and Patrick Ramsay, burgess of Dundee, were executed for importing false money, called hardheads, into the kingdom; and an entry in the Treasurer's accounts,34 under the date of May of this year, records the sum of xxiiijd. paid to "ane boy passand

31 Cardonnel, p. 99; Lindsay, p. 106.

32 State Papers (Scot.) Eliz., vol. ii., No. 103.
MS. Reg. Sec. Con. Acta.

Comp. Thes. MS. Reg. Ho.

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of Edinburgh with the heidis, armis, and legges of Patrick Ramsay and Andro Murray justefiit to the deith for in-bringing of fals hardheidis within this realme, to the townis of Dunde and Perth and otheris townis appointit."

This was immediately followed by an Act of the Privy Council, on the 19th of May,35 forbidding the inhabitants of the Marches to take the light and false money, said to be fabricated in large quantities in Newcastle and Berwick, under heavy penalties.

On the 15th and 16th of July, the last coins of this unfortunate princess were struck. On those days "the Lords causit streik the Queenis work in xx shilling, xxx shilling, and x shilling pieces, which extended to 8 stone wecght." Towards the close of the month King James was proclaimed, and his first coinage was minted in August, immediately after his accession.

R. W. COCHRAN-PATRICK.

35 MS. Reg. Sec. Con.

Reg. Ho., Edin.

X.

ON THE COINS OF THE MUWAHHIDS IN THE

BRITISH MUSEUM.

IT is seldom, even in the field of Oriental Numismatics, that one finds a series of coins so untouched as those of the Muwaḥhid Khalifehs of Marocco, the Almohades of what may be called the Spanish Crusades.

Fraehn, who has generally published all one's discoveries, is in this case completely thrown into the background by Delgado (in Gaillard's Mon. Esp. Garcia de la Torre Collection) and Castiglioni (Mon. Cuf. dell' I. R. Mus. di Milano): but Delgado unfortunately limits himself to the bare registration of inscriptions; and Castiglioni, on the other hand, admits a superfluous amount of historical comment. Adler's Collectio Nova contains a very good account of four coins of the dynasty.

The following is a list of coins now published by me which have been published before :

Dīnārs.

'Abd-El-Mu-min, no. 1. (Delgado.)

Yusuf I., no. 3. (Fraehn, Rec.; Castiglioni, incorrectly; and Delgado.)

El-Murtaḍā, no. 1. (Delgado.)

Some of the Dirhems.

The rest are, to my knowledge, inedited.

[In weighing I have used the French system; and, in measuring, English inches and tenths of inches.]

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HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE MUWAHHIDS.

The name Muwahhid1 signifies One who says that God is One, a Unitarian. Why El-Mahdi gave the name ElMuwahḥidun (vulg. El-Muwaḥḥidin) to his followers has, I believe, never been discussed. And yet it is surely a strange anomaly that a Mohammadan sect should take the name of Unitarians, when it is the fundamental doctrine of El-Islam that there is one God without associate. I think, however, that the name may easily be explained by a reference to the tenets of the sect to which El-Mahdī belonged this was the Ash'ariyeh, with the opinions of which he was thoroughly imbued. He was consequently a vigorous supporter of the allegorical method of interpreting the Kur-an. We find him constantly attacking the overorthodox Sunnis1 of El-Maghrib on the subject of their anthropomorphic interpretations. In their opposition to anthropomorphism the Ash'arīs agreed with the Moatezilis, and in the section on the latter in Esh-Shahrastani's Kitāb el-Milel wa-n-Noḥal (trans. by Dr. Th. Haarbrücker) we find this sentence: Sie erklären die allegorische Deutung der Korânverse, in welchen solche Vergleichungen' [als Richtung, Ort, Gestalt, Körper, u. s. w.] vorkommen, für nothwendig, und nennen diese Art und Weise des Verfahrens das Einheitsbekenntniss.' In this word Einheits

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. وحد is the act. participial noun of 2nd conj. of موحد

2 Ibn-Khaldun, Histoire des Berbères, tr. by De Slane, vol. ii. p. 164.

Cf. Esch-Schahrastâni, Religionspartheien und PhilosophenSchulen (Kitab el-Milel wa-n-Nohal), trans. by Dr. Th. Haarbrücker, (2 vols. Halle, 1850-1,) vol. i. pp. 104, 109, etc.; Sale, Korân, Prel. Disc. p. 127, etc.

Esch-Schahrastâni, vol. i. p. 96.
Ibn Khaldun, vol. ii. p. 164.
Esch-Schahrastâni, vol. i. p. 43.

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