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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Thomas Gresham
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(1519–79, kt 1559) Merchant banker who built, largely at his own expense, London's first *Royal Exchange. He is wrongly credited with the so-called Gresham's Law ('bad money drives out good'), a principle well understood before his time. The law describes the situation (true of Tudor England) in which coins bearing the same face value contain differing quantities of precious metal. It states the obvious – that people will use the intrinsically less valuable coins (the bad money) for their purchases, while either hoarding or melting down the good money, thus driving it out of circulation and debasing the currency.
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