Privy Seal

“ There were many lands now, bringing wealth and [37] commodity to the republic, that should soon again revert towards and pay all their fruits to Rome; there were many cleaned and whitened churches that should again hear the old nasty songs and again be tricked with gewgaws of the idolaters. Therefore, before all things, my Lord Privy Seal must retain the love of the King's Highness—— Cromwell, who had resumed his pacing, stayed for a moment to listen.
'Wherefore brought ye not news of why Cleves' envoy came to Paris town?' he said pleasantly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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) . ”

“ John Btsse,—Bolton deceased,—patent, Westminster, 9 July, 1666.—Pleasure.—18 Charles II. 1a pars d. R. 20.
Henry Hene, one of the Barons,—Bysse deceased,—Privy Seal, Whitehall, 20 Feb.—patent, 10 March, 1679.—31 Charles II. 1a pars f. R. 27—Continued by James II.—Privy Seal, 19 Peb.—patent, 4 March, 1685.—Pleasure.—1 James II. 3a pars f. R. 2.
Sir Stephen Rice, Knt., one of the Barons,—Hene removed,—Privy Seal, 9 March,—patent, 11 April, 1687.—Pleasure.—3 James II. 2a pars f. R. 18.
John Hely,—Rice removed, — Privy Seal, Kensington, 3 Nov. — patent, 5 Dec. 1690. — Pleasure. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Doubtless in the earliest times only the most powerful persons possessed seals, but as civilization advanced the officers of the administration came to use, besides their own personal seals, official ones for government purposes. Thus it was that the seal, being the real instrument of the power and authority of an office, came to be used as the symbol of it, and the delivery of an official or State seal to an individual, gave to that individual the authority and power to execute the rights and duties of his office. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ They shall lay the seals reverently before the emperor or king, who shall immediately return them to the archbishops. The archchancellor of the kingdom in which the diet is held shall wear the great seal of the empire about his neck during the dinner and until he returns to his abode. The staff, which shall be of silver of the value of twelve marks, and the seals, shall be handed over to the chancellor of the court. ”

“ In Du Simitière’s final design, which was the best of the four, the Goddess of Justice was substituted for the American rifleman as the sinister supporter, and Franklin’s suggestion was accepted for the reverse.
The committee reported August 20: [8]
The great Seal should on one side have the Arms of the United States of America which arms should be as follows: The Shield has six Quarters, [9] parti one, coupé two. The 1st. Or, a Rose enamelled gules & argent for England: the 2d. Argent, a Thistle proper for Scotland: the 3d. ”

“ The present device was legally adopted and all we can do is to follow the provisions of the act, having an eye, of course, to general heraldic propriety; but even if the laws of heraldry are transgressed in some minor particulars, I think we still are bound to follow the letter of the law, despite the rules of heraldry. If we must have a strictly heraldic seal, let us go to work ab initio and change the law. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Great Seal ought always to be held by a lawyer of the highest distinction; nor can such a lawyer discharge his duties in a perfectly efficient manner unless, with the Great Seal, he accepts a peerage. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The object I held beneath her gaze was insignificant in itself, merely a small brass seal, but it bore the Warnham arms in exact imitation of the cut amethyst worn by the Earl. It was the seal which had been used to manufacture the duplicate of the envelope containing England’s secret alliance with Germany. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These came into common use towards the end of the twelfth century, much at the same time that armory itself became a thing of life, and they were constantly being engraved for men, and even for women, who bore and used arms, and for corporate bodies entitled to have seals.
Moreover, since every seal was produced under the direction of its owner and continually used by him, the heraldry displayed on seals has a personal interest of the greatest value, as showing not only what arms the owner bore, but how they were intended to be seen. ”

“ John Adams, 9in a letter to his wife, August 14, 1776, told the story of the committee’s efforts to make the seal:
[Du Simitière is] a painter by profession, whose designs are very ingenious, and his drawings well executed. He has been applied to for his advice. I waited on him yesterday, and saw his sketches. * * * For the seal he proposes the arms of the several nations from whence America has been peopled, as English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch, German, etc., each in a shield. ”

“ As to the reverse, the device adopted by Congress is practically incapable of effective treatment; it can hardly (however artistically treated by the designer) look otherwise than as a dull emblem of a masonic fraternity. * * *
Mr. Winsor commented upon Professor Norton’s notes. He agreed that the seal was not a good coat of arms. He thought, however, that it had not been the purpose of Congress “to show an heraldic bird”—that “the American eagle displayed proper” could not be an heraldic eagle. ”

“ Regarding the scroll containing the “E pluribus unum” we consider the present form altogether the best to use as the sheet scroll mentioned would interfere with the eagle, while the old form of scroll falls in well with the general design. The dies will be cut in steel.
This letter may be said to be the argument for the Whitehouse designs. They were submitted to Mr. Champlin, who wrote, January 7, 1885:
It seems to me useless to regret that Congress did not adopt in 1782 a different device for the great seal of the United States. ”

“ The consideration of this objection at first gave my mind no small degree of anxiety. I was conscious to myself that I had no views of ambition to gratify. Those views, if I had entertained any such, would have been better consulted by accepting the Great Seal, and with it a highly efficient place in the public Councils—but which I had already refused—indeed every view of that kind has been long since more than satisfied. ”

“ The two figures, generally animals, which fill up the spaces to the dexter and sinister of the central achievement on Seals, in the fifteenth century are almost invariably drawn of a comparatively large size; and, for the most part, they really act as Supporters to the Crested Helm, being themselves supported by 242 the Shield. The composition of the Seal of Edmund de Mortimer, Earl of March, A.D. 1400, though now mutilated, exhibits in a most satisfactory manner this very effective arrangement, from which true Supporters to a Shield of Arms might obviously be derived. In this Seal, No. ”