precious metals. There is preserved among the State papers at the English Record Office a paper of advice from a German of the name of Herman King to Wolsey, dating in June 1519, "How to provide bullion from Germany for this realm with the greatest profit." He advises contracting for a fixed supply of metal at a certain price, which he puts down, and adds: "If Wolsey will appoint a person to receive the money, I will engage to deliver 2000 or 4000 marks weight yearly at this price, but it must be secretly, as, if the purveyor were discovered, he would be in great danger, and the (German) princes would not suffer any silver to depart because of their own Mints."
Four years later the effects of the exchange had made themselves so felt that Henry was obliged to make a treaty with the Emperor, Charles V., "for the reformation of old and new money," 1523. An attempt was made to tie down the chief coins in exchange—the gold real of Flanders, the gold carolus and the double carolus of Spain—and it was further agreed (Article IV.) that no new money of Germany, Italy, Spain, France, or elsewhere, should be given in payment to English merchants, unless it had a fixed value in sterling money by consent of both princes.
In December of the following year Wolsey was meditating sending commissioners to the Low Countries Page