J·.)URNAL OF THE COUNTY DONEGAL HISTORICAL SOC1:STY bish from the point of view of a moderately advanced coilector. One day, however, a Scottish visitor to our home presented me with a small silver coin about the size of a 3d piece wnich was one of a hoard found in an iron chest during quarrying operations in the SouthWesL of Scotland. None of us, at the time, knew what it was, ]}ut, it h<J;ppened that my father iwas getting an Illustrated Histo1·y of England in fortnightly p·arts and the part which came a few days later dealt with the reign of Edward 11. It had an almost full page illustration of the coins of that foolish and tragic king and there, to my great surprise and delight, I saw my little coin dearly re:pr2sented - a penny struck at the ecclesiastical mint in Canterbury. Experts said that the coins found were part of the army pay for the great camp-aign against s·cotland which endEd so disa·sterously for Edrwa.rd on the field of Bannockburn. lt was, probably, captured as booty and hidden by someone rwho never returned to get it. The acquisition of this little coin, almost co-inciding with the means of its indentification gave me such a thrHl of interest that, from that day to this, any coin that is associated with great historic events or outsfanding period of human 'P'rogress never fails to evoke the liveliest interest and pleasure. Years afterwards I stood, one day, on the battlefield of Bannockbum with the little coin · in my pocket and amongst the many thoughts which crowded into my mind was one something like this~Is the dust of the man who might have earned my penny, as the wages of a day's bloody rwork, mixed with the soil of the fields around-those fields enriched with the blood and bones of slaughtered Englishmen and patriot Scots? Another thrill of a somewhat similar character was experienced when later I picked up wi~h my own hand, during farm257. work, a small black disc, which, when cleaned and decipnered (1with the aid of a small numismatic manual) proved to be a half-groat of Henry VUl struck at York by the all-powerful Cardinal Wolsley. It bears the hat and keys -the symbols of his office and it will be remembered that one of the charges brought agairn;t him when he lost the royal favour was that he had the presumption to put his insignia on the King's coin. Anyone knowing something of Wolsley's career-his rise to power and brilliant a·ccomplishments followed by such a tragic fall can hardly look upon and handle this little coin without hearingas it rwere acrm·s the centuries faint echoes of those pathetic words put into his rr:outh by the immortal dramatist, "O Cromwell, Cromwell, h?.d I but served my God with half the zeal I served the king, he would not in mine age have left me naked to mine enemies." It is not without interest to speculate a little as to how t~is coin came to be lo:.t on a hillside in East Donegat Did some soldier of the Elizabethan campaign wander far to the Northwest and drop it, or, perchance some settler 01r planter from the folloiwing reign have the misfortune of a hole in his pocket? At any rate I am sure its loss gave someone a thrill of a dif~er~nt kind from what I felt on p1ck1?g it up and tater finding it an mcentive to the study of a most interesting ·period of Irish and English history. These two coins laid, as it were, the foundation of a collection which not only includes rep~ resentatives of practica'1ly every ordinary issue made in these islands but also of that magnificent series of Roman First Brass issued iby the Emperors of the early centuries of the Christian era, the twelve Great Caesars, as they are called. These coins bear in high relief the splendid portrait busts of the great Masters of the Roman world on one
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