harm from, the bimetallic law which insatiably sucked away her wealth. Until the time came, therefore, when she lost her monopolist position in this matter the monetary history of Spain is free from those features of disturbance, commercial agitation, monetary conferences and edicts, which are common to the rest of Europe, and consist merely of a record of Mint ordinances regulating the fineness of her coins and slowly adjusting them to the general movements of the century. Only in the case of the first of these—the edict of Juan and Don Carlos, 1537, by which the standard of coronas and escudos was fixed at 22 quilates, "which is the standard of the greater escudos of France and Italy"—has the enactment any comparative or international bearing.
For sixty-one years after the settlement of 1497 there had been no alteration of the monetary system. In 1523 the Cortes of Valladolid had petitioned the King, Charles I., to lower the standard and content of the gold coin, "so that in weight and value they may pass equal with the crowns of the sun which are made in France, so that by these means they will no longer draw our gold from the kingdom." In its ignorance this Cortes also demanded that the silver monies should be reduced and issued on a relatively depreciated footing. It was a matter of thirteen years before Charles yielded and adopted the measure suggested,