270 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [High Stmt.
were also struck some very small copper coins
called pennies, worth one-twelfth of the sterling
penny, inscribed, Nemo me imjun.? lamsit; but in
those days the manufacture of coins was not confined
to the capital alone.
Balfour records that, in 1604, ? the Laird of
Merchiston, General of the Cunyie House, went to
London to treat with the English Commissioners
anent the (new) cunyie, who, to the great amaLement
of the English, carried his business with a
great deal of dexterity and skill.?
In the closing days of the Mint as an active
establishment, the coining-house was in the ground
floor of the building on the north side of the
court; in the adjoining house on the east the
coinage was polished and fitted for circulation.
The chief instruments used were a hammer and
steel dies, upon which the various devices were
engraved. The metal being previously prepared of
the proper fineness and thickness, was cut into
longitudinal slips, and a square piece being cut
from the slip, it was afterwards rounded and
adjusted to the weight of the coin to be made.
The blank pieces of metal were then placed
between two dies, and the upper one struck with
a hammer. After the Restoration another method
was introduced at Gray?s Close-that of the mill
and screw, which, modified with many improvements,
is still in use. At the Union, the ceremony
of destroying the dies of the Scottish coinage took
place in the Mint. After being heated red hot in
a furnace: they were defaced by three impressions
of a punch, ?which were of course visible on the
dies as long as they existed; but it must be recorded
that all these implements, which would now
have been great curiosities, are lost, and none of
the machinery remains but the press, which, weighing
about half a ton, was rather too large to be
readily appropriated, otherwise it would have
followed the rest.?
The Scottish currency was, when abolished in
1707, of only one-twelfth the value sterling, and
LIOO Scots equalled &3 6s. 8d. sterling; or LI
Scots equalled IS. 8d. sterling. The merk was
13s. 4d. Scots, and the plack, z bodles, equal to
4d. Scots.
The ancient key of the Mint is preserved, with
some other relics of it, in the Scottish Antiquarian
The goldsmiths connected with the Mint appear
to have had apartments either within the quadrangle
or in its immediate neighbourhood, and
there is no doubt that it was the professional avocations
of the great George Heriot that led to his
obtaining the large tenement that formed the north
d Museum.
side of the Mint court which, during his lifetime,
he conceived to be the most central and suitable
place for the erection of his future hospital, and
which he describes in his will (see the Appendix
to Stevens? biography) as ?theis my tenements of
landes, &c., lyacd on the south side of the King
his High Streit thairof, betwixt the Cloise. or
Venall, callit Gray?s Clois, or Coyne-hous Cloise,
at the east, the Wynd or Venall, callit Todrig?s
Wynd, at the west, and the said Cope-how Cloise
at the south.?
His tenements there were found to be ruinous,
and every way unsuitable for the purpose for which
they were designed by his executors, and the buildings
which afterwards formed the north side of the
quadrangle were those erected in the reign of
Charles 11. in 1674.
On the zznd of February, 1656, during the Protectorate
of Cromwell, a committee was appointed
by the Commissioners of the shire of Edinburgh,
for the equalisation of the assessment, ?and for
the more speedie effectuating thereof, the whole
heritors, liferenters, woodsetters, and other persons
whatsomever, liable in payment of cess,? were
ordered to appear before the said committee, at
the Judge Advocate?s lodging at foot of Gray?s
Close, on certain forenoons in March, according to
a paper in the SrotfisZ Liferary Magazine for
The door to the floors above the coining-house
in the Mint bore the letters ?C. R. II., God save
the King, 1674.? Here was the lodging of Archibald
ninth earl of -4rgyle, during his attendance on
the Parliament, after Charles 11. had most unexpectedly
restored him to his father?s title. Under
date November zznd, 1681, only a few days after
the escape of the Earl from the Castle, disguised as
his stepdaughter?s page, Lord Fountainhall records
that ?Joseph Brown and James Clark, having
poinded the Earl of Argyle?s cabinet forth of the
coin-house at Edinburgh, for a debt owing to them
by the Earl?s bond, the said cabinet having been
rescued from them by violence, they gave in a
complaint to the Privy Council of the riotous deforcement.?
In defeuce it was alleged that the Mint was a
sanctuary, and no poinding could be enforced
there. It was answered that it was unknown
whether it was by law or usurpation that the Mint
was an asylum, and that it could protect only those
in the service of the King j ?? but to extend this to
extraneous persons running in there to avoid captions,
much less to secure goods and plenishing, &c.,
is absurd. They fearing the want of this, alleged
that the wright who made it (the cabinet) retained
1819.
