Lord Privy Seal

“ The Duke of Newcastle dying, Robinson, Bishop of Bristol, was made Lord Privy Seal, a new thing since the days of Wolsey and Laud for a Churchman. In Scotland the Jacobites were so much elated by the proceedings of the Tories, and by whispers of what really took place, while Mesnager was in secret conference with the queen—namely, a zealous advocacy on his part of the setting aside the Protestant succession, and the re-admission of the Pretender's claims—that they proceeded to great lengths. ”

“ Lord Privy Seal, 1853–55; rector of the University of Glasgow, 1854–55; postmaster-general, 1855–58; reapp. Lord Privy Seal, 1859; a liberal; a writer of considerable ability on Scotch ecclesiastical questions, and a distinguished lecturer (Athenæum; Inverary Castle, Argyllshire; Roseneath Castle, Dumbartonshire) . ”

“ When we find a privateer belonging to the Lord Privy Seal attacking neutral vessels, and man-of-war officers boarding and robbing a Flemish merchantman at Tilbury, it seems wonderful, in view of the excesses such incidents suggest among the majority with no sense of legal responsibility, that commerce could have been carried on at all. ”

“ Alexander Balscot, Bp. of Meath,—patent, Westminster, August 27, 1389.—13 Bic. II. f. 8, 9.—Sworn 25 October: and although the King had directed no writ out of England to Sir Robert de Preston, Keeper of the Great Seal, to deliver the same to him, yet, by advice of the Lord Justice, Treasurer, and Council, it was agreed that the Seal should be delivered to him by the said Keeper, and that the King's writ should be sent to him for that purpose, under the said Seal, which was issued accordingly. ”

“ The great seal was a very important badge and emblem of the royal prerogative. No decree was of legal authority until an impress from this seal was attached to it. The officer who had charge of it was called the chancellor. A new seal was prepared for each sovereign on his accession to the throne. The devices were much the same in all. They consisted of a representation of the king seated on his throne upon one side of the seal, and on the other mounted on horseback and going into battle, armed from head to foot. ”

“ It may be interesting to some of your correspondents, and especially to Mr. Lower, to know that a few seals, both pendent and impressed on the parchment itself, within haybands, may be found of as early a date as the reign of Edward II. From that time the fashion become very prevalent: in the reigns of Richard II., Henry IV., Henry V., Henry VI., and, indeed, down to the period of Elizabeth, it was the common practice to secure the wax impression in this manner. Almost all the impressions of the Privy Seal of Henry V., called "the Eagle," are made on haybands. ”

“ Lo here we have the King-es seal; What, lourdain, art thou wood?" The porter weened it had been so, And lightly did off his hood. "Welcome be my lord's seal," said he, "For that shall ye come in." He opened the gate right shortelie, An evil open-ing for him. "Now are we in," said Adam Bell, "Thereof we are full fain, But Christ he knoweth, that harrowed hell, How we shall come out again." "Had we the keys," said Clym of the Clough, "Right well then should we speed; Then might we come out well enough When we see time and need." ”

“ THE GREAT SEAL OF THE EMPRESS. (See p. 116.)
There yet remains one point, in connection with this remarkable charter, perhaps the most striking, certainly the most novel, of all. This is that of the seal. According to the transcript in the Ashmole MSS., the legend "in circumferentia sigillo" was this: "Matildis Imperatrix Rom' et Regina Angliæ."
Now, that any such seal was designed for the Empress has never been suspected by any historian. We cannot, on a question of royal seals, appeal to a higher or more recognized authority than Mr. Walter de Gray Birch. ”

“ The Ostrich Feathers were borne, as a Badge with his Shield of Arms, upon one Seal of Edward III. himself: they were used, as an heraldic device, about the year 1370, by Philippa, his Queen: they appear on some, but not on all, the Seals of the Black Prince, and they are omitted from some of his Seals after the battle of Cressi (A.D. 1346) : and they were also borne, generally with some slight difference, marking Cadency, in all probability by all the other sons of Edward III.—certainly by John of Ghent, Duke of Lancaster, and by Thomas of Woodstock, Duke 233 of Gloucester. ”

“ Each abbot, too, would have his own seal of dignity, generally showing him standing. Local seals of town or borough may have the image of a patron saint, or armorial device, or castle or bridge or other building (see fig. 4) , or the town itself. A seaport will be indicated by a ship on the waves. The baronial seal bears the armed and mounted knight. On ladies’ seals the owner is often gracefully depicted standing and holding flower or bird, or with shields of arms. After the 14th century, the figures of ladies, other than queens, vanish from seals. ”

“ He then settles down to defend it; for more and more "old man" Seals come, all eager to own the best places. The roaring and fighting go on day and night. The gentle Seal is now a savage beast, covered with wounds. ”

“ His silhouette stood out distinctly in the gloom, and although I saw not his countenance I knew well that it was my enemy Purvis—the man who held my love in bondage.
Back at the Manor I found everything prepared for siege. Seal was not a man to stand idle if there was any chance of a scrimmage. Like all giants in strength, he loved fighting. His hesitation to face Black Bennett had now entirely disappeared, and over his rum that night he expressed a most fervent hope that the “white-livered swabs,” as he termed them, would appear in the secret passage. ”

“ Paul's (which, however, occupied him but a brief time) , as in the Commission of Trade and Plantations, and in the building of Greenwich Hospital, were much better adapted to his inclinations and pursuits.
As a Commissioner of the Privy Seal in the reign of King James II., he had a difficult task to perform. He was most steadily attached to the Church of England, and the King required the Seal to be affixed to many things incompatible with the welfare of that Church. ”

“ Lord Chancellor Littleton, fleeing from Parliament to Charles the First at York, carrying with him that precious symbol of Royal authority, the Great Seal (the third Great Seal of that reign) , made in the year the Long Parliament began to sit ”

“ Richard, Earl of Cornwall, brother of Henry III., King of England—he was elected King of the Romans in 1257; the Emperors Charles IV., 1347; Sigismund, 1414; Albert II., 1438; Frederic III., 1440; Charles V., 1530; and Mathias, 1612. Also the seals of John, King of Bohemia, 1314; Waleran, Duke of Lemburg, 1225; and an example of extraordinary perfection in workmanship, the seal of George William of Brandenburg, 1622. Valuable illustrations of sacred costume were supplied by the seals of Mayence, representing St. Martin, the patron
Brooch, found in a tumulus at Skryne, Co. ”

“ If the seals are there, all will be explained; if the Minister has not restored them, you must accuse him at once of having stolen them; and thus you will be sure to ruin your enemy and recover your seals." The keeper of the seals followed his friend's advice exactly, and the seals were found again in the casket.
As soon as a royal child, which they call here un Enfant de France, is born, and has been swaddled, they put on him a grand cordon; but they do not create him a knight of the order until he has communicated ”

“ Documents forming Part of the Process of issuing Letters under the Great Seal.—These are known as Chancery warrants, and consist of Privy Seals, Signed bills and other documents forming steps in the process. Series I. of these documents extends to the end of the reign of Richard III., and Series II. to the end of the reign of Henry VIII.; Series III. ends with the reign of Anne, and Series IV. with that of William IV., while Series V. is still in progress. Series I. and II. are arranged in chronological order (Series I. being also classified) ”

“ The galley in which the queen and the princess were embarked, being probably of superior construction to the others, and better manned, succeeded in weathering the point and getting round into the harbor, but two or three other galleys which were with them struck and were wrecked. One of these ships was a very important one. It contained the chancellor who bore Richard's great seal, besides a number of other knights and crusaders of high rank, and many valuable goods. The seal was an object of great value. Every king had his own seal, which was used to authenticate his public acts. ”

“ The Secretum or private Seal of Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, the father of the King, appended to the homage-deed extorted by Edward I. from the Scottish nobles, is a good example, No. 390: this is another of Mr. Laing’s beautiful woodcuts. Badges also constantly appear upon Seals in association with Shields of arms. Thus, a Seal of one of the Berkeleys, A.D. 1430, has a mermaid on each side of an armorial shield. Two other examples of this kind I have already given: No. 318, the Seal of Joan de Barre, which is charged with the castle and lion of Castile 225 and Leon, as Badges: and No. ”

“ It is surely something new to those who have directed their attention to the numerous devices upon seals to find that the husbandman had so low an opinion of his own social status as to reject the use of any emblematical sign upon his seal, when Thomas the smith, Roger the carpenter, and William the farrier, bore the elements of their respective crafts as proudly as the knight did his chevron or fess. ”

“ The connecting link between the general use of the signet, which was required by the Roman law for legal purposes, but which had died out by the 7th century, and the revival of seals in the middle ages is to be found in the chanceries of the Merovingian and Carolingian sovereigns, where Early medieval seals. the practice of affixing the royal seal to diplomas appears to have been generally maintained (see Diplomatic) . Naturally, surviving examples of such seals are rare, but they are sufficient in number to indicate the style adopted at different periods. ”

“ Two seals only are used at the Colonial Office, the signet and the smaller seal; while at the Home Office and the India Office the smaller seal is used for all purposes. All the seals bear the Royal Arms, but have no image or device appropriate to the office of which each is the symbol. Each Minister receives the seals of his office enclosed in a velvet case from the King. No doubt curiosity impels him to examine the seals on that great day when he enters office, but he probably never sees them again until that other notable day when he quits office by handing the seals back to the King. ”

“ All the seals, which are large and thick and more than two inches in diameter, have the impression of a signet ring inclosed with a "hayband" of parchment pressed into them. One of these coils being loose shows itself to be a thin strip of the label itself brought through the wax.
10 February, 14 Edward IV. Lease by Sir Thomas Urswyk, Knight, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and Thomas Lovell, to John Morton and others, of the manor of Newhall, Essex, and other lands, &c. The seal of Lovell has his armorial bearings and legend ”

“ In the British Museum there is the skin of a very young Seal, which was presented by Sir John Richardson as the Falkland Island Fur-Seal, with the observation appended that the adult is 5 feet long, and its skin is worth fifteen dollars. It is without its skull. The fur of this young Seal is dark brown, reddish beneath, and very like that of the young specimen sent by Capt. Abbott; but the hairs are smoother, and the white tips to them are longer and more marked, giving the animal a more grizzled appearance. ”

“ It was far more of a necessity in everyday life to the people of antiquity than are our seals to us, or locks and keys to a modern householder. We still use the seal, it is true, for our legal documents, sometimes for our letters, for our post-bags, and occasionally for sealing up a room. Our Ministers of State have their Seals of Office, our Corporations and Companies have their registered official seals, and in our Coronation ceremonies there is the investiture of the Sovereign with the Royal Signet Ring. But all these uses of the seal are as ancient as the pyramid-builders of Memphis. ”

“ The committee to design the arms of the new nation had no national precedent to follow, for the arms of a kingdom are nearly always those of the sovereign or his family, and the new Republic could accept no individual’s arms. The several colonies, however, each had a seal, and these, as they were generally significant and simple, would have been a fair guide to the exigencies of a national seal. The members of the committee, however, had an idea that an allegorical picture significant of the fortunes and destiny of the United States would be more appropriate ”

“ Here it is. Good! Seals not tampered with.”
Withdrawing from the box a large official envelope, doubly secured with the seal of the British Embassy at Berlin, and endorsed by Sir Philip Emden, our Ambassador, he walked hastily to one of the long windows overlooking the paved courtyard of the Foreign Office, and for some moments closely scrutinised both seals and signature. ”