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Scotland had its own currency,
the pound Scots, prior to the Act of Union in
1707. The first indigenous currency in Scotland
was the silver penny, coined by David I. In
theory each pound weight of silver yielded 240
pennies (that is, 1 pound equalled 20 shillings,
and 1 shilling equalled 12 pennies). However,
the crown coined 252 pennies to the pound to
make a profit. From the fourteenth century until
the end of the sixteenth century debasement
of the coinage resulted in the divergence of
the Scottish and English currencies. In the
reign of James III (1460-1488) the pound sterling
was worth 4 pounds Scots. In 1560, 5 pounds
Scots equalled 1 pound sterling. When James
VI succeeded to the throne of England (in 1603)
the exchange rate for Scots pounds to sterling
was fixed at 12:1. To find out more about money,
coinage and banking, in Scotland go to the entry
on money and banking in the SCAN Knowledgebase.
The converter in the pop-up
box allows you to do two things:
- carry out addition in pounds, shillings
and pence
- convert an amount in Scots pounds to Sterling
(from the year 1600 onwards)
To view the converter,
click
here. Please note that, to use this currency
converter interactively, you must have Microsoft®
Internet Explorer 4.01 or later and the Microsoft
Office Web Components. If you do not have these
components then go to the money and banking
entry in the SCAN Knowledgebase
to learn how to calculate this manually.
To find the ‘purchasing
power’ (the equivalent amount of money today,
taking into account inflation) for this amount,
go to the Economic
History Services website.
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