the great seal of england: some notes and suggestions

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The Great Seal of England: some notes and suggestions

Hilary Jenkinson

The Antiquaries Journal / Volume 16 / Issue 01 / January 1936, pp 8 28DOI: 10.1017/S0003581500011355, Published online: 08 January 2012

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0003581500011355

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The Great Seal of England: some notesand suggestions

By HILARY JENKINSON, F.S.A.

[Read 16th May 1935]THE WORK OF A. B. AND ALLAN WYON

To commemorate Queen Victoria's Jubilee a work on the GreatSeals of England by Alfred Benjamin Wyon, who died in 1884,was completed and published by his brother Allan in 1887;* bothhad the special qualification that they held the Office of Seal-Engraver to Her Majesty as their father and grandfather hadheld it before them ; and their work has remained the standardauthority on the subject. It seems suitable in the present yearto see how much the discoveries of nearly fifty years have addedto it.

In some senses their book is remarkably complete. In additionto their own collections they drew upon the contents of nearlyseventy muniment rooms; and, beginning with four seals ofSaxon kings before Edward Confessor and with the two sealsof that monarch, were able to illustrate, with remarkably goodimpressions in many cases, 190 Great Seals and counterseals ofEnglish Kings, Queens, Parliaments, and Protectors ; and to dis-entangle with considerable success the complicated chronologicalrelations between (for example) the seven or eight Great Sealsof Edward III. Certainly they left the subject very much clearerthan they found it.

PROCEDURE IN CONNEXION WITH THE GREAT SEALOn the historical side it is true there is much to be added to

their Appendices and Introductions : thanks to the labours ofSir Henry Maxwell Lyte,2 the late Professor Tout3 and one ortwo others we know a good deal more now about the organiza-tion and personnel of the Chancery ; and there is more yet tobe known. Even in regard to the Great Seal itself—the manu-facture, cost, and design of the 200 odd matrices which have been

1 Allan Wyon published also in 1894 Additional Notes upon the GreatSeals of England, in Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. This and other notes by himselfand his brother in the same series will be mentioned below ; but I have citedthroughout their major work simply as 'Wyon' .

1 Historical Notes on the Use of the Great Seal of England, 1926.3 Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England, 1920, etc.

THE GREAT SEAL OF ENGLAND 9

in use during the last nine centuries—a certain amount of infor-mation has come to hand since 1887, and more is yet to come:and in regard to the procedure connected with its use there isdefinitely a great deal to be discovered or brought together.Financial records of the medieval period, which have as yethardly begun to be published, will certainly yield some, perhapsmuch, information as to cost, engravers' names, and dates : andProfessor R. H. George of Brown University showed me, notlong ago, that sources no more remote than the State Papers,Treasury Books, and Privy Council Registers held considerable in-formation of a similar kind at a later date.1 In regard to pro-cedure I would instance as examples of new points which havebeen brought to light since Wyon's time the discoveries ofSir Henry Maxwell Lyte concerning the use of the Half-Sealand concerning those hundreds of thousands of Legal Writs,nominally issued under the Great Seal, which from very earlytimes carried actually a spot of wax no larger than a little fingernail : and even in regard to these fresh information has accruedsince Sir Henry's Notes were published. Other matters of a likenature readily suggest themselves: medieval forgeries of the GreatSeal—or at least the appending of genuine impressions to veryungenuine documents—which have been discussed in the roomsof the Society of Antiquaries more than once in recent years;the very early practice of issuing certain Royal Charters in duplicate,each with its impression of the Great Seal, a practice which asI have lately found reason to believe 2 began before the practiceof Enrolment; the exceedingly interesting question of the ruleswhich govern the use of the Great Seal for the purposes of Diplo-macy and the conventions of phraseology for the documentsassociated with it; the tangle of preliminary processes which inlater years accompanied the issue of letters under the GreatSeal—all these and many others have been the subject at leastof inquiry; though in many cases we have still learnt littlemore than the extent of our ignorance. Even the small point ofthe materials used for post-medieval impressions of the GreatSeal (the latest development of which is seen in the practice ofthe present day3) has yet to be investigated.

1 I hope to make further use in another paper of some of the notes ProfessorGeorge was good enough to give me for the period 1660-88.

% The City of Norwich possesses duplicate copies of a Charter of Richard I,each with the Great Seal appended.

3 When this paper was read an impression of the present Great Seal in thenew hard material (a cellulose acetate moulding compound known as Cellomold)was shown by the courtesy of the Crown Office.

io THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL

Such studies are, of course, highly specialized and most ofthem have been made possible only by the vast increase in thepublication of documents during the last fifty years. It wouldbe unfair to criticize the Wyons for not enlightening us inregard to them nor do I propose to deal further with them in thepresent paper: indeed anything like full knowledge in manycases must wait upon the ultimate synthesis of innumerable smallindications which will emerge from time to time almost acci-dentally from the researches of numerous scholars in very varyingfields. But it seems right that these new aspects of the study weare considering should be mentioned, and the importance of atleast some of them emphasized. I would take this opportunityto beg all who are concerned in the publication of documents togive us the fullest opportunities of obtaining from their Listsand Calendars the material we require : there are still Calendarsof Deeds prepared and published whose editors think it un-necessary to mention even the presence of Seals.

SOME ADDENDA TO WYONOn the other hand on the purely iconographic side the Wyons'

work, with its numerous plates, will probably remain for a longtime our principal authority, and it is very desirable that asmore and more collections are examined and we gain freshinformation on such points as the precise periods covered by theSeals they listed, or the existence of others which they did notknow, this knowledge should be made public. Nor will it beimproper to test when occasion offers the accuracy of their work.I propose in the present article to record the result of sixinvestigations which have suggested themselves recently.

THE GREAT SEAL SINCE 1887

The first matter is obviously that of the further Great Sealswhich have been in use since the Wyons' work was published.They number at present four. First there is one issued in May1900 for Queen Victoria : it shows a much later portrait of theQueen and the legend VICTORIA- DEI -GRATIA- BRITT- REGINA-FID.DEF-IND-IMP- The second is the Great Seal of KingEdward VII issued in May 1904, with the legend EDWARDVSVII D : G : BRITT: ET TERRARVM TRANSMAR : QV/E IN DIT : SVNTBRIT: REX F: D: IND : IMP • Finally we have the two Great Sealsof His Majesty King George V. The first is remarkable in thatit substitutes a standing portrait of the Sovereign in naval uni-form for the normal equestrian figure. Apart from the two Map

THE GREAT SEAL OF ENGLAND n

Seals of the Commonwealth period ' there is only one otherGreat Seal (the second Seal of Queen Anne,2 made after theAct of Union with Scotland in 1707, and having a figure ofBritannia on the reverse) which does not show an equestrianportrait: though that of William IV 3 introduced emblematicalshipping into the background. The legend reads GEORGIVS VD : G: BRITT: ET TERRARVM TRANSMAR QV/E IN DIT SVNT BRIT:REX F : D : IND : IMP: In his second seal His Majesty has restoredthe equestrian figure. This seal came into use in April 1930:the legend reads GEORGIVS • V • D • G • MAG • BR • HIB • ET • TERR.TRANSMAR- QVAE • IN . DIT- SVNT- BRIT- REX F: D -. IND: IMP :

THE GREAT SEAL OF HENRY V AFTER THE TREATYOF TROYES (1420)

It is worth while mentioning here a small matter concerningthe Great Seal of this King. Wyon4 points out that the Treatycontained a provision affecting the French title of Henry V,which was to be, during the lifetime of his father-in-law, notRex Francie but Heres Regni Francie ; and cites from Rymer 5 anorder to the Chancellor of the Exchequer about the engravingof a Seal to accord with this change, but adds that the order inquestion was apparently not carried into effect.

Two points may be made in regard to this. In the first placeWyon has not cited his authorities very correctly: for the Treatyof Troyes6 did not (as he suggests) lay down a new style to beused by Henry V but only provided that he should abstainfrom using Rex Francie, and that the King of France shoulddescribe him in French documents as Heres Regni Francie : andmoreover the order of Henry V was not for the making of anew seal but for the alteration of an existing one (probably theseal of the Exchequer) which was in the custody of the Chan-cellor of the Exchequer. The second point concerns the frag-ment (recently discovered and to be described elsewhere7) of animpression of a seal of Richard III for his Common Bench ofIreland; on the reverse of which there appears the word heres?

1 Wyon, pis. xxx, xxxi. * Wyon, pi. XLIII. 3 Wyon, pi. LII.4 p. 47. 5 Foedera, ix (1729), 915.'' See the text given by Rymer, ix, 901 and 919.7 See p. 22, note 3, and p. 25, note 4, below. The seal is on a document in

the Irish section of the Exchequer, K. R., Accounts at the Public Record Office(E 101/248/17).

8 The fragments of the legend remaining and legible are Ricardus dei gr. . . .rex anglie heres . . . minus hibernie. There is apparently a large fleur-de-lisbetween the rex and anglie and another between \do\minus and hibernie butpractically no space between anglie and heres: Ricardus is the result of certainlyone, probably two, clumsy alterations.

12 T H E ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL

The matrix of this seal wasunquestionablyaltered forRichardlllfrom one of earlier date : and since heres is applicable only toHenry V J it seems clear that it must have been one of that King.It is a not improbable inference, since apparently some order,not yet traced, was duly carried out in regard to the Irish sealsof Henry V, that the specific order of the same King to hisChancellor of the Exchequer,2 which was given on the same dayas the orders to Sheriffs for the proclamation of the Treaty,3 wasalso executed : and if this order related (as we have suggested)to the Exchequer Seal, we may add that there is at least a pos-sibility that the Great Seal also was modified or re-engraved, andthat impressions not only of an Exchequer Seal bearing the hereswording but also of an unrecorded Great Seal of Henry V simi-larly distinguished may yet come to light.

THE GREAT SEALS OF EDWARD IV, EDWARD V, ANDRICHARD III

This investigation was prompted by the discovery4 of an in-complete Great Seal of Richard III (illustrated here, pi. v, a)the design of which did not correspond with the only oneportrayed by Wyon 5 (also illustrated here, pi. v, U). Wyon'sstatement6 is that the two sides of this seal (except, of course,for alterations of the name) are ' identical with those of theFourth Seal of Edward IV and of Edward V'. ConcerningEdward V he says,7 ' No impression, to my knowledge, existsshowing the use of a Great Seal during this short period', butadds a quotation from Speed implying the use by Edward V ofhis father's seal. The ' Fourth Seal' of Edward IV he says 8

is ' exactly the same as the Third Seal, except in the Counter-seal, where a small globe with a small spike on the top in highrelief appears . . . just above the hind-quarters of the horse '.The ' Third Seal' is separately illustrated.9 The dates coveredby these two seals of Edward IV are, according to the sameauthor, the period of the King's second reign (1471-83) : andhe cites I0 examples of the use of the Third from eighteen

1 It might, of course, appear on the seal of a Prince : but I think the possi-bility is almost certainly excluded by the nature of the fragment under discussion.

z The deletion of Rex Francie and the insertion of the Heres phrase areactually mentioned in the instructions to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

3 Rymer, ix, 916.4 On Duchy of Lancaster, Royal Charters (D.L. 10), no. 392, at the Public

Record Office.! Wyon, pi. xvi, no. 92. 6 p. 64. 7 p. 63.8 p. 62 : illustrated pi. xm B, nos. 87 A, 88 A.9 Wyon, pi. xv, nos. 87, 88. I0 pp. 61 and 158.


sources, but knows * of only two impressions of the Fourth,both in the British Museum.

The situation is complicated by the fact that Birch's volume,2

though published in the same year as Wyon's, adopts here (asin other cases—for instance those of Henry III and Edward III)a different numeration : so that the British Museum ' Third 'seal of Edward IV is Wyon's ' Fifth ' 3 and the British Museum's' Fourth ' and ' Fifth ' are Wyon's ' Third ' and ' Fourth ', inaddition to which Douet d'Arcq,4 for the three seals of this Kingwhich he described in 1868, used yet another numeration.Moreover it is an unfortunate feature of Wyon's work that weare never told which of the examples cited in the text is the oneselected for illustration in the Plates : we have merely a generalstatement in the Introduction that the casts for the illustrations' were specially taken for this book by Mr. Robert Ready, ofthe British Museum'.

We may begin by commenting—(i) that practical experiment3 confirms Wyon's statement

as to the adaptation of Edward IV's seal by Richard III ; butthat

(ii) the seal of Richard III illustrated by him resembles the' Third ', not the ' Fourth ', of Edward IV in the matter of theglobe ; and

(iii) that Birch 6 ascribes a sulphur cast, of unknown origin,to the reign of Edward V: stating that it differs from the Sealof Edward IV only in having the 'small shrine, on King's sceptrereplaced . . . by small star or knob on a slender rod'.

We may dispose at once of the last statement. The cast Birchcites does not show this peculiarity in the sceptre: it is seen inthe cast7 which he describes under his no. 313 ; but that hecalls a seal of Edward IV, and indeed it appears to be the castused by Wyon for his illustration of the ' Fourth' Seal8 of thatKing ! In point of fact the alleged peculiarity of the sceptre is

1 p. 62.2 Catalogue of Seals in the Department ofMSS. in the British Museum, 1887, etc.3 The so-called ' French' Seal; to be mentioned again below.4 Collection de Sceaux, iii: the first seal he mentions (no. 10045) *s Wyon's

Fifth and his 'Second' (10046) Wyon's Fourth. His ' t h i rd ' is a cast ofEnglish provenance which I have not identified. I have to thank MonsieurCourteault, Director of the Archives Nationales, for a note on this subject.

5 I fitted a cast from a seal of Richard III (with the name deleted) to a mouldfrom one of Edward IV.

6 British Museum Catalogue, i, no. 318.7 Numbered LIII, 9 : it is wrongly described by Birch as though the reverse did

not show the ' globe '.8 Wyon, pi. XIII B, no. 87 A.

i 4 THE ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL

almost certainly due to an imperfection either in the cast or inthe impression from which it was made.

We pass then to a consideration of the two pairs of seals ofEdward IV and Richard III and the curious globe which is thesole distinction between the ' Third ' and ' Fourth ' of KingEdward. It has been suggested that this last is a rather earlyoccurrence of the globular adornment on this part of a horse'strappings which is a well-known feature in representations ofequestrian figures, including some Royal Seals of later date.1

Apart from the question of date I myself find it rather difficultto believe in the alteration of a Seal solely in order to includethis feature: especially as the engraver has not troubled to in-dicate any attachments—it appears to hover—and it interruptsthe pattern of the background. This question, however, be-comes comparatively immaterial in the light of other discoveries.Examination of the impressions of the ' Third ' and ' Fourth 'Seals of Edward IV cited by Wyon, in conjunction with hisplates, reveals two rather startling facts. In the first place theSeal pictured by him in illustration of the ' Third ' shows a veryobvious ghost—a patch suggesting the careless filling of a flaweither in the matrix of the Seal or in the mould from whichWyon's cast was made—in the place where the 'globe' might be.Secondly, examples of the ' Third' seal cited by him prove 2 onexamination in every case to have the ' globe ' : in other wordsthey do not differ at all from the ' Fourth ' ; and the original3 ofWyon's ' Third' (globeless) seal has yet to be found.

I should have adopted without hesitation one of the two ex-planations based on the supposition of a flaw given above, wereit not that the Seals of Richard III raise a fresh difficulty. Hereagain I can find no trace (other than unidentified casts in thepossession of the British Museum 4 and the Society of Anti-quaries 5) of the original from which Wyon's plate is derived,all the examples he cites (and one or two others) proving oninspection to have the ' globe ' ; but in addition Wyon's picture

1 I am indebted to Mr. G. E. Kruger Gray and Mr. J. G. Mann for noteson this subject.

2 With one exception (which could not be found) all the eighteen examplescited by Wyon have been examined; together with a few others not mentionedby him. I have to thank the custodians of the Collections concerned (twenty innumber) for much courteous assistance.

3 The Society of Antiquaries and the British Museum both possess castssimilar to that used by Wyon for" his illustration of the ' Thi rd ' Seal. TheMuseum cast (numbered A. 87 : Birch's Catalogue, no. 317) will be the subjectof further observation below.

4 A. 88 : no. 323 in the catalogue. . 5 Here reproduced.

-3 a X

Rev

erse

s of

the

G

reat

S

eal

of R

ich

ard

III

(abo

ut

T H E ANTIQUARIES JOURNAL Vol. XVI, pi. VI

T H E GREAT SEAL OF ENGLAND 15

of the equestrian reverse differs from them all in another point—it shows a quite distinct and very peculiar rendering of theRic in the legend ; and lacks the well-marked cross which in allthe originals precedes the King's name.

What is the explanation ? Had Edward IV after his restora-tion two Great Seals (I exclude the ' French' one,1 to bementioned below) ? and if so what has become of any impressionsof the ' Third', the globeless one ? and what is the meaning ofthe patch on it—just where the ' globe ' might be—in Wyon'spicture ? On the other hand, if he had only one, what is theorigin of Wyon's ' Third ' and its patch ? And in any case howdo we explain the two Seals of Richard III ?

Obviously until a considerably larger number of Seals ondocuments dated between 1471 and 1485 has been examined itis impossible to make a final pronouncement: but personally Ibelieve that Edward IV (after his restoration), Edward V, andRichard III had only one Great Seal between them, and thatthe globe (whatever its meaning may be) will be found on allimpressions. The explanation of Wyon's ' Third' Seal ofEdward IV, of the ghosts of the ' globe ' in his pictures and ofthe two renderings of Ric is one which I hesitate to put forwardbecause of certain potential inferences which it involves: but Ifeel obliged to offer two more small pieces of evidence. First,there is in the British Museum a cast,2 with the ghost of a 'globe',which purports to be from an original (also in the BritishMuseum3) on which the ' globe ' is fully developed. Secondlythe curious curly R in Wyon's illustration of the reverse ofRichard Ill's Seal is very closely paralleled in one place (andin no other to my knowledge) ; and that place is the obverse ofthe same seal.4 The conclusion seems inevitable that the peculiarfeatures in Wyon's illustrations and text which have given us somuch trouble are due to the peculiar skill of his cast-maker.Actually I am afraid there is little doubt5 that the cast forWyon's plate6 of the reverse of Richard's seal is made up from

1 Wyon's ' Fifth Seal'. 2 A. 87 : see Catalogue no. 317.3 Cott, Ch. v, 9 : Catalogue no. 315.4 I have actually placed a mould of the Ric from the obverse of an original at

the Public Record Office on the cast of the reverse in the possession of theSociety of Antiquaries which is apparently the same as that used by Wyon: andit fitted, considering that the cast is a sulphur one, quite well.

5 A comparison of Casts A. 87 (Edward IV) and A. 88 (Richard III) in theBritish Museum to my mind proves the point. The numbers in the Catalogueare 317 and 323.

6 Wyon, no. 9 2 : compare the details in this also with those in BritishMuseum A. 88.

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the reverse of a seal of Edward IVwith the Ric inserted from theobverse of a genuine seal of Richard: which suggests alarmingpossibilities in regard to the rest of Wyon's illustrations.

THE FIRST GREAT SEAL OF CHARLES IIIt was known before 1887 that Charles II, on assuming in

1649, while in exile, the Kingly Title, had had a new Great Sealmade ; but the only impression seen by Wyon I was an almostunrecognizable fragment in the British Museum.2 In 1915 amuch better example was discovered among the ClarendonPapers3 at Oxford, on a commission dated 10th May 1649 toEdward Hyde and Lord Cottington, as plenipotentiaries inSpain; and was described in the Bodleian Quarterly Record 4 and inThe Times5: it is a fine impression but lacks the head of the Kingon the obverse. The perfect impression here reproduced (pi. vi)was brought to myattention bythe owner, Mrs. WalkerHeneage,of Coker Court, Somerset, who very kindly allowed it to beexhibited to the Society. It is attached to Letters Patent dated inJersey, 8th February 1650, granting a change of arms to RichardSteward, LL.D., Dean of the Chapel Royal. The writing of thisdocument (a good formal Italic) is interesting: clearly Charles II,though he had a Chancellor and a Great Seal, had not any of hisChancery Clerks with him.6

Although in general it follows the established English con-ventions, this first Great Seal of Charles II is markedly un-English in its style and definitely in advance of its predecessorsin its execution : the engraving is indeed of a very high order.From this point of view it is interesting to contrast (for example)the somewhat sophisticated lion and unicorn supporting theenthroned figure with their prototypes in the seals of James Iand Charles 1:7 the position is the same or similar, but the turngiven by the foreign engraver to these familiar English figuresis very noticeable. Other details reproduced from the third andfourth seals of Charles I are the rose and crown and the shieldof arms in the background of the reverse. On the other handthe interesting view of London Bridge seen on the equestrian

1 PL xxxv. See also a note by Allan Wyon in Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc,1, p. 142 (1894).

' On a grant dated 18th September 1649.3 Bodleian Library, MS. Clarendon 37, f. 94.4 Vol. i, p. 199. 5 19th October 1911.6 The use of a Special Set Hand in the Chancery (and in other Courts) was

abolished by Parliament in 1650 but reintroduced at the Restoration.7 Wyon, pis. XXIV-XXIX.


side of the second, third and fourth seals * of Charles I disappears;2

and the running grey-hound, which had been a familiar and pro-minent figure on English Great Seals from the time of the secondSeal of Henry VIII,3 is replaced by a somewhat pensive lionpacing in the background.

This Seal might be said to mark the disappearance of the lastvestige of the medieval (saving, of course, the actual conventionof the two positions in which the Sovereign is figured) from ourEnglish Royal Great Seals: were it not that in the first GreatSeal4 engraved after the Restoration, Charles II reverted, nodoubt deliberately, to the style of his Father's reign, where acertain element of debased medieval is still seen in the clumsyattitude of the horsed figure.5 There was also, perhaps, a con-scious revulsion from the correct and quite un-medieval styleof the equestrian figures used by the Cromwells. In the thirdand fourth Seals of Charles I I 6 (the second and third after theRestoration) there is a final break-away from the medieval:7

indeed they seem to have been considerably influenced by theFrench classicism of the design now under discussion.

The matrices of this Seal were presumably those which,according to Clarendon,8 were lost after the battle of Worcesterin 1651.

SEALS OF ABSENCE AND SEALS FOR FRENCH AFFAIRSWyons Account

There is considerable confusion in Wyon's account of theduplication which resulted from the fact that for various reasonsit was sometimes necessary for documents requiring the authen-tication of the Great Seal to be executed in more than oneplace at the same time. Wyon has endeavoured to cover theseby means of three rather technical phrases—'Seals of Presence',' Seals of Absence ', and ' Seals for French Affairs ' : but theuse of technical names implies rigidity of procedure; and theaddition of new evidence since 1887, together with some re-

1 Wyon, pis. xxvn-xxix.2 It reappears in a number of post-Restoration Seals : it was also used in the

Cromwell Seals.3 Wyon, pi. xvni, no. 100. It figures thereafter in the third Seal of Henry

VIII and in the Seals of Edward VI, James I, and Charles I and reappears inthe first post-Restoration Seal of Charles II .

4 Wyon, pi. xxxvi. 5 See Wyon, pis. xxvm, xxix.6 Wyon, pis. XXXVII and xxxvm.7 This remark applies only to the Great Seal properly so called. In certain

Departmental Great Seals, which I hope to describe elsewhere, the medievalelement lingers to a later date. 8 Cited in Bodleian Quarterly Record, loc. cit.

VOL. XVI C


examination of that which Wyon actually used, makes it clearthat this terminology as employed by him is misleading. Heprobably took the first two from an article on the Great Sealsof Edward III and some later Kings which was published byRobert Willis in 1845; ' but Willis had merely used them, ashe expressly states,2' for the sake of distinction ' upon discover-ing the concurrent use of two seals at certain times; applyingthe term ' Seal of Absence' to the seal which was used inEngland when the King was absent from the realm. ' Sealsfor French Affairs' is apparently a description developed byWyon himself; partly perhaps on a hint contained in Willis'sarticle, partly as a result of some new discoveries of his own.

We may begin by summarizing briefly Wyon's statementsin this matter. He tells us first of a ' third' or ' smaller ' sealof Henry III which according to him3 that Monarch tookabroad with him probably in 1262 and certainly in 1263.Wyon's statement, which is probably based on Hardy's Cata-logue of Chancellors . . . (1843),4 is not quite correct: he hasquoted part of Hardy's references as applying to the year 1262,whereas they relate to 1263. However, the material fact thatHenry III about this time had one great seal with him inFrance while another was in use in England, may be taken asestablished. Indeed entries on the Close Roll of 1262 whichwere not used by either Hardy or Wyon seem to prove that thestatement may be taken as correct in respect of that year: forwe find5 that on 23rd September a letter passed the Great Sealin England which was warranted per breue de Magno Sigillo(presumably in France) : and the same authority shows6 thatJohn Maunsel gave up the charge of this seal in France atsome date between 6th October and 10th October.7 This lastpoint is particularly interesting because, as Mr. Stamp has re-cently shown,8 Maunsel was Secretary to the King and muchconcerned with foreign affairs. Wyon does not distinguish thisSeal by any special title.

The next cases cited by Wyon are considerably later. EdwardIII going abroad in 1338 takes his Great Seal with him andanother (which Wyon calls the Seal of Absence) is left for useat home: and the same practice is followed, according to Wyon,9

1 Archaeological "Journal, ii, 14. * Ibid., p. 21.3 P. 25. 4 P. 10, note 2.5 See the Public Record Office Close Roll volume, p. 88 : cf. similar evidence

for the year 1260 in- Calendar of Patent Rolls, p. 67.6 P. 1 56. 7 I am indebted to Mr. Stamp for a note on this subject.8 Historical Essays in Honour of James Tait (Manchester, 1933), p. 309.9 Pp. 33. 34-


in the case of another * extra seal during various absences ofthe King between 1340 and 1360, the extra seal being got outon each occasion for use in England during the King's absenceand put away again on his return.

With the next reign we come to the first of the seals describedby Wyon as for French Affairs: and here we have to note a dis-tinction, which is not brought out by him, between two groupsof the Seals so described. In the first place we have a series offour seals2 used for diplomatic purposes on four single occa-sions, not bearing any special inscription indicating a particularpurpose (such as is seen in the special seals of Edward I andEdward II for Scottish Affairs) nor showing (with one possibleexception) any evidence of being specially designed; two of thembeing, in fact, mere revivals of old seals. Thus the Seal for FrenchAffairs of Richard II is used, according to Wyon,3 once onlyand is an adaptation of Edward Ill 's ' Fourth Seal of Presence':similarly the seal attached to the Treaty of Troyes (which Wyononly calls ' the Silver Seal' but which has as much title as thatof Richard II to be called 'French') is a revival of the FirstSeal of Henry IV;4 which was a modification of the old Bretignyseal of Edward III, used also as an ordinary Great Seal byRichard II, and (with a further slight modification) by HenryVI. Then there is the Fifth Seal of Edward IV, which isunique in this series in that it is a seal not otherwise known andis not, apparently, a modification of any old one. The onlyreasons for calling it a seal for French affairs are first that thesingle example known is attached to the Treaty of Amiens andsecondly that the fleur-de-lis is used to separate words in thelegend; and the last piece of evidence is somewhat discountedby the use of this symbol (noted above) on an Irish Seal ofHenry V. Finally there is the curious seal of Henry VII,attached to a confirmation of the Treaty of Etaples in 1492,which we shall mention again below.

WThat I have called the second group of Wyon's ' Seals forFrench Affairs' is formed by the four Seals 5 dating from thereign of Henry VI; i.e. from the period when an English kingwas, as a result of the Treaty of Troyes, king also of France.

1 The engraving of what Wyon describes as the ' second Seal of Absence' waspresumably due to the same reason as that of the third ' Seal of Presence'—theadoption of the title Rex Francie.

2 Wyon (p. 42) would make it live, for he includes the bulla of goldsmiths'work used by Henry VIII in 1527 for his Treaty with Francis I.

3 P. 42 : it was used to seal an acknowledgement of the payment of part ofthe Queen's Dowry.

4 Wyon, p. 47. 5 Wyon, pi. xm A and B, nos. 79 B to E and 80 B to E.


The seal of Henry VII just mentioned might, from the pointof view of its design (to be described later), be included in thisgroup.

The Circumstances which gave rise to these SealsIn the first place we must observe that the need for a supple-

mentary Great Seal arose much earlier and much more oftenthan Wyon suggests. The Dialogus de Scaccario1 tells us that soearly as the reign of Henry II it had been found necessary tohave two Great Seals, one of which was ' deambulatory' (i.e. itaccompanied the King and his Court on their progresses) whileone was kept at the Treasury: and it is clear that Wyon's listof occasions when absence of the Sovereign from Englandcaused an abnormal procedure might be considerably enlargedby examples taken from the reigns of more than one King;even though impressions of ' extra' seals brought into use inthis way may not yet have been discovered. Thus Richard I,during his absence on Crusade, left behind for use in England(as Tout has pointed out2) a ' small' seal the identity of whichhas not yet been established:3 John during his absences inNormandy apparently sealed there the letters of which we havecopies on the special Norman Rolls \ and it is fairly certain thatmany writs which were not subject to enrolment must havecontinued meanwhile to issue in England under another seal:Henry Ill's Seal was undoubtedly duplicated at a date con-siderably earlier than that given above:4 and we can wellimagine that the absences of Edward I and Edward II fromEngland produced like arrangements.5 I have not made an in-tensive study of this matter, but the works of Sir Henry MaxwellLyte and the late Professor Tout, already cited, have broughtto our notice a number of fresh cases when the Great Seal wasundoubtedly duplicated owing to the King's absence abroad;the Record Office List of Chancery Rolls, taken with the variousCalendars of Enrolments, would supply a catalogue of occasionswhen, for the same reason, the use of two seals is at least aprobable supposition. A careful perusal of the rolls themselvesmight very probably add some definite evidence; and we may

1 Oxford edition, p. 107. % Chapters . , ., i, 148, 149.3 I cannot agree with Tout in identifying this positively with the second seal

mentioned by the Dialogus as being kept at the Treasury: under Henry II thiswas apparently as close a copy as possible of the ' deambulatory' seal.

4 See Tout, Chapters . . ., i, 149; with the passages cited from PatentRolls of 1230, 1242, and 1253. See also on the Patent Roll of 1254 {Calendar,pp. 384, 386) mention of grants, ' by the Seal of England'.

5 See, in fact, upon this point Tout, Chapters . . ., ii, 64, 68, 301.


hope that originals surviving from one or other of these periodswill presently be added to Wyon's list—possibly in considerablenumbers. It is also not impossible that examination of furtherexamples, in French or other repositories, of original treatiessealed with the Great Seal of this country may disclose one ortwo more examples of abnormal sealing similar to those citedabove as resulting from diplomatic requirements.

Now we have here already four distinct possibilities for thedevelopment of a duplicate Great Seal.

(i) There is the constantly recurring and regular need forsealing routine documents, such as legal Writs, at the centre ofRoyal Administration (i.e. in London) at times when the Kinghimself and his Great Seal are ' deambulatory'.

(ii) There is the need which arises at intervals during themedieval period as the result of the absence of English Kingsfrom this country—generally in France.

(iii) There is the diplomatic need which arises on isolatedoccasions when Treaties or similar documents are to be authenti-cated abroad.

(iv) There is the need which arises when a large new depart-ment of public business is added to the tasks of CentralAdministration and something like a branch Chancery becomesnecessary.

Let us take these in order.

(i) The Extra Seal jor Domestic and Routine WorkOf the supplementary Great Seals which undoubtedly resulted

from the nomad habits of early Kings Wyon has said practicallynothing; nor have subsequent writers investigated the mattersystematically or endeavoured to identify the impressions of asecond seal which (one would think) must have survived in atleast a few instances. In France the same need was met by theinstitution of a special seal, surviving impressions of which covera period of over two centuries : 1 a seal which differed generallyto a marked extent from the design of the contemporary GreatSeal, and was invariably distinguished by a legend in which itwas stated to be the king's seal in absentia magni ordinatum. Thisphrase has led to its being called the Seal of Absence or by someauthorities2 the Sceau Ordonne : but note that if the formerphrase be used the absence is that of the Great Seal, not of theSovereign.

1 Douet d'Arcq, Collection de Sceaux (Paris, 1863), lists (nos. 55-99) one ormore examples for every reign except one, from Philippe de Valois to Henri IL

2 e.g. Octave Morel, LaGrandeChancellerieRoyale ... 1328-1400(Paris, 1900).


I know of no evidence that any such fixed arrangement wasreached in England : certainly if it occurred it was not longlived; but it is much more probable that development in thiscountry proceeded from the first along different lines. We donot know how long the practice described in the Dia/ogus(including the use of a second seal which was deliberatelymade as like to the first as possible) persisted unchanged.Purely as a conjecture I would advance the suggestion thata period of development may be looked for in the reign ofHenry I I I ; in which reign we find1 a second seal, which wasborrowed for use at the Chancery during one of the absences ofthe king, described indifferently as [sigillum] quod residere con-sueuit ad Scaccarium (which recalls the Dialogus1 description) z

and Sigillum Regis de Scaccario—which suggests a much moreadvanced stage, when the second seal was regarded as normallythe property of the financial department. This last gives us,in fact, a clue to the line of development followed in Englandfor the final solution of some of the difficulties caused by the' deambulatory ' character of the Great Seal: which was found,so far as certain routine and domestic business was concerned,in the delegation of the right to seal, originally the prerogativeof the Chancery, to various departments of Central Adminis-tration ; this right being exercised even when the Great Sealwas not ' absent'. Of the individual seals—resembling theGreat Seal but carefully differentiated from it—which thusarose at the Exchequer and elsewhere I hope to treat in anotherplace.3 Here it must suffice to emphasize the fact that theyprovide the nearest parallel in this country to the Sceau Ordonneof France.

It must be added that this institution of departmental sealswould not by itself have solved all the difficulties of the case :a powerful aid was found in the development (also traceable tothe reign of Henry III) of the Privy Seal, which by makingit possible for the King to ' warrant' the issue of letters underhis Great Seal when the Chancellor was not actually in attendanceupon him made possible also the ultimate fixing of the Chanceryat the Centre of Administration, and so rendered unnecessarythe old (unspecialized) second Seal.

1 See the Record Office Patent Rolls, 1225-1232, p. 340.1 In the time of the Dialogus the Scaccarium was still only an occasion—it

had not yet become a place-—-and the second seal was kept in the Treasury.3 At the time this paper was read I gave a very brief sketch of the history of

these other seals: I hope to expand this in an article to be printed in Archaeologia;though even that will be only a first exposition of this neglected subject.


(ii) Seals used at home during the King's absence abroadIt is to these seals that the information collected by Wyon,

Tout, and Lyte (and we may add Rymer) mainly applies. Theevidence shows two stages of development. At first a voyage ofthe King abroad creates much the same situation as his ' de-ambulations ' at home; and we may imagine that this was metby the same expedients. It is even possible that the smaller' third ' seal* of Henry III portrayed by Wyon may prove to bean example of the seal quod residere consueuit ad Scaccarium ; andwe may add that the practice of borrowing this seal for the useof the Chancery Clerks while the King was out of England isin evidence on at least two occasions2 later than that of 1230which we have already mentioned. However that may be, it isclear that administrative practice in this period was still veryfluid : for though it was generally the more important Sealwhich accompanied the King abroad the practice was sometimesreversed, as for instance in 1263 ; 3 and sometimes the King,though he took the Great Seal proper out of action and substi-tuted another, did not take either with him,4 In 12535 the Kingwas using abroad the Seal quo utimur in Vasconia—definitely nota Great Seal; and on the other hand in 1298 6 we hear of sigillumRegis quo cum Rex erat in Vasconia uti in Anglia consueuit.

When we reach the later period the situation is different: bythe reign of Edward III, for instance, the other devices whichwe have noted for getting over the absence of the Great Sealfrom the seat of Government were well established. On theother hand we note the growth of a definite convention, of whichearlier there was only a beginning, by which it was assumed thatduring the King's absence from the realm the abnormal natureof the situation should be marked by the use of an abnormalSeal: and in 1340, 1342, and later we find this Seal describedin a phrase which recurs with only slight modifications—sigillumfro regimine regni Anglie ipso Rege extra idem regnum existente

1 Perhaps also the mysterious other one which Wyon (p. 23) ascribes (thoughhe does not say on what evidence) to the earlier part of Henry I l l ' s reign.Wyon does not reproduce this and the only evidence he gives for it is froma pair of casts in the British Museum (li, 18 and 19) of unknown origin : butaccording to the British Museum Catalogue (i, p. 17) this is to be equated witha fragment described by Douet d'Arcq {Collection de Sceaux, 10013) as belongingto the year 1263 ; concerning which date see note 3 below.

1 1242 and 1253 : see the Calendar of Patent Rolls for those dates, pp. 290and 210. 3 Tout, i, 304.

4 For instance in 1253 (see Calendar of Patent Rolls already cited) : also againmuch later—in 1320 (see Tout, ii, 301 and documents there cited).

5 Tout, i, 293 ; and documents cited. Tout, ii, 68, note 5.


ordinatum (or deputatum)? But even now the practice is by nomeans rigid. The less formal Seal can always be called magnumsigillum—it is still ' the other Great Seal'; there is no evidencethat any serious attempt was made to give to its matrices any dis-tinctive design or legend ; and so late as 1372 2 an old matrixof the ordinary Great Seal may be revived for use in Englandwhile the King is abroad.

In view of these facts I cannot help regretting not only thatWyon should have used technical phrases in description of whatare little more than ad hoc expedients but also, and still more,that Tout, who has accumulated so large a number3 of interest-ing passages from Records bearing on the duplication of theGreat Seal, should have created something of a false impressionby labelling the substitute Seal in almost every instance withthe words Seal of Absence, often in inverted commas; althoughthe documents he cites, so far as I have been able to checkthem, nowhere warrant the assumption that this phrase, or anysimilar technicality, was used by contemporaries. I do not thinka name suggesting reasoned and rigid practice and implying astrong differentiation of forms should be used unless the sealconcerned (as in the case of the Sceau Ordonne in France) ismodified in the matter of design and legend ; and modified inthe same or a similar way in successive examples. At mostEnglish practice might be said to be working towards this inthe time of Edward III and his sigillum pro regimine regni Anglie. . . deputatum : but this rather clumsy phrase was not repeatedin any way in the legend of the seal or seals to which it wasapplied nor was it even, so far as is known, reflected in thelanguage of the documents to which such seals were appended.

iii. Special Seals used for Diplomatic purposesOf the Seals mentioned above as appended to various diplo-

matic instruments, I do not propose to say much except thattheir sole claim to the title given them by Wyon is based onan accident—the fact that it was France which was involved inthe diplomatic proceedings in question. On the other hand theuse of special Seals for this purpose, even though they might beonly old Great Seals revived, is particularly interesting in view

1 See Tout, iii, 80, 81, 1 52, 164 ; and documents there cited.2 Tout, iii, 283.3 See, in addition to the pages already cited, i, 141, 303 (where he says that

Henry Ill's small seal was ' demonstrably' the first seal of absence), and 306;ii, 2, n. 5 ('the king's son, like the king, had now his "seal of absence'");and iii, 153, 166, and 222 ('the bag in which the seal of absence was en-closed').


of the mystery which surrounds the employment of a ' proto-notary' at the English Chancery for some centuriesl in connexionwith documentary work of a diplomatic character, and the almostequally mysterious connexion of the King's Secretary2 withChancery business of this kind at an early date. The wholesubject of diplomatic practice in England during the medievalperiod is one which calls for research; and it is much to behoped that further examples of Great Seals used in the way wehave described may presently be brought to light; though weshall be well advised not to label them as specially affected tothe ' Affairs ' of France or of any other country.

iv. Seals resulting from new branches of Chancery workNeeds of this kind had arisen long before the fifteenth century.

I have dealt elsewhere with the Scottish Chancery and GreatSeal of Edward I and Edward II ; 3 the thirteenth century seemsto have seen a Chancery, complete with Great Seal, establishedin Ireland ;4 and it is by no means impossible that the Seal forGascony already mentioned, an example of which has been de-scribed by Tout,5 should be brought into the same category :but the Seals for France of English Kings have some specialfeatures. At the death of Charles VI in 1422 Henry VI, by theprovisions of the Treaty of Troyes, became King of France :and the terms of the Treaty,6 as well as the obvious exigenciesof the case, prescribed the maintenance of existing administra-tive institutions in this new appanage of the English Crown.As a result we find the series of four Seals already mentioned :reminiscent of English Great Seals of the late thirteenth or earlyfourteenth century and in marked contrast to the overloadedarchitectural detail and ' black letter' of contemporary designsin this country. They are in fact modelled with extraordinarycloseness on Great Seals of France : indeed the resemblancebetween what Wyon 7 calls the ' First Seal for French Affairs 'of Henry VI and the seal of Charles VI 8 whom he succeeded

1 He is named so early as 1199 in a Royal ordinance.: Cp. A. E. Stamp, loc. cit., pp. 309, 310.3 See an article in Antiquaries Journal xi, 229.4 The earliest known copy of the Registrum Omnium Breuium was sent over

in 1227 for the information, apparently, of an established Irish Chancery: seeF. W. Maitland, in Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History (Cambridge,1908), ii, 563.

5 Tout, i, 293 : but see also Charles Bemont, Roles Gascons, i, Supplement(Paris, 1896), p. xix. 6 Cf. Sections 10 and 11 as set out in Rymer, ix, 898.

7 P. 51 : pi. xm A, nos. 79 B and 80 B.8 See for descriptions of this and the French Seals subsequently mentioned


is so strong that one looks twice to make sure that the Englishhave not possessed themselves of the actual French matrix ; andthe resemblance is carried on in Wyon's ' Second Seal for FrenchAffairs ',* which differs from the First only in small points. Thedeliberate imitation of the French Seals is shown further in theuse of a small counterseal, bearing the typical French design ofan angel supporting shields of arms, instead of a reverse matrix.This is a device unique in the whole history of English GreatSeals. It is common for the ' deputed' or departmental Seal tohave a shield of arms on the reverse instead of the second por-trait of the Sovereign : we have seen it in the case of the ScottishSeal and it will appear elsewhere. But the use of the smallcounterseal is quite foreign to English practice.

Concerning the employment of these two Seals not muchcan usefully be said here, except that they were used for Frenchaffairs, generally in France, as the Great Seal of a French Kingwould have been used if there had been no Treaty of Troyes.We may add that their relation to English records and Englishadministrative practice is a subject which calls for investigation ;and that there must surely be, in France at least, many moreimpressions surviving than Wyon's rather brief lists 2 wouldsuggest. The remaining Seals, however, which Wyon describesas the ' Third' and ' Fourth ' for French affairs have a highlyinteresting feature which differentiates them from the others : inthe documents to which they are appended they are described asnre seel ordonne en labsence du grant? In the case of one (Wyon's' Fourth ') 4 this presents us with a puzzle which I shall not hereattempt to solve: it is a mere fragment but it appears to be a frag-ment of the ordinary French Seal. The other (Wyon's ' Third')5

gives us at last the appearance of a genuine ' Seal of Absence'in English practice; for it shows the half-length figure of theSovereign (again a unique thing in English Seals) and the legend

SI61[LLV]fltt RQGIVflft IR HBSG[nO3I snflGM] GRDIIffiTVSR6

which distinguish the Sceau Ordonne of Charles V and Charles VI.

the British Museum Catalogue of Seals, v, nos. 18099 an<^ 18109; and Douetd'Arcq, loc. cit. * Wyon, pi. XIIIA, nos. 79 c and 80 c.

z He notes one example only of the ' First ' and six of the ' Second' Seal forthe period between 1422 and 1440.

3 Wyon, Great Seals, mentions this in the case of the ' Fourth' Seal only: forthe other see an earlier article by A. B. Wyon in the Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc.for 1884; to be mentioned again below.

4 Wyon, pi. XIIIB,nos. 79E and 8OE. 5 Wyon, pi. XIIIB, nos. 79D and 8OD.6 Wyon's description omits the word magni: but the space over which the

legend is missing requires it.


It is interesting to find the maintenance of a French practice (asdescribed above) carried so far by an English King, and renewsour desire to see a complete investigation of the administrativeprocedure connected with these Seals.

The French Seal of Henry VII, known to Wyon by oneexample only,1 provides a fresh puzzle : for on the one hand itsobverse, though of small size, is modelled closely on the ordi-nary Great Seal of England, has no distinctive legend, and,like the earlier Seals described above, was apparently usedsolely for a diplomatic purpose, the confirmation of the Treatyof Etaples in 1492 ; but on the other hand it displays one of thecharacteristic marks of the true French Seals in having a smallangel counterseal. For the present this problem must be leftunsolved for want of evidence.

Conclusion

It may be convenient at the end of a somewhat complicatedinquiry to summarize our chief results. They are

(i) that there is no sufficient evidence, such as distinction ofdesign or legend or uniformity of administrative procedure, tojustify the application of the technical name Seal of Absence to anyof the ' extra' or deputy Great Seals used in England for routinebusiness when the King was absent from the centre of govern-ment, or from the realm itself, during the medieval period :

(ii) that Wyon's description of certain Great Seals before 1421as ' Seals for French Affairs ' is not justified by any known factsas to their use, nor by their form or legend :

(iii) that the French Seals of Henry VI described by Wyonare, on the other hand, correctly so termed; being Royal Sealsof France modified by the fact of Henry's accession to thatkingdom : but

(iv) that Wyon has omitted to notice that (following Frenchpractice) they are of two distinct kinds; one being a genuine' Seal of Absence ' as used in that country.

The last remark may lead to one final matter for discussion.

THE NEED FOR A STANDARD NUMERATION OFENGLISH GREAT SEALS

It is essential, if we are to persuade the editors of deedcatalogues to give us information about Great Seals, that weshould have a precise and agreed system by which these can bedescribed. We have already noted the unfortunate discrepancies

1 Wyon, p. 66: pi. xvn, nos. 95 and 96.


between Wyon and the British Museum in description of theseals of Henry III, Edward III, and Edward IV; but theFrench Seals of Henry VI offer a particularly good example.The distinction we have just mentioned between two types ofFrench Seal was quite clearly brought out in an article byA. B. Wyon published after his death in 1884:' but althoughthis article was largely incorporated in the book published in1887, the latter, as we have seen, for some unexplained reason,dropped the distinction and created a new (erroneous) order.Nor is this all: for the British Museum Catalogue (though ittreats2 the French Seal of Henry VII separately) has included3

all the French Seals of Henry VI in a general series of the GreatSeals of his reign; adding a curious abnormal seal (the GreatSeal of the Duke of Burgundy appended to English LettersPatent) which the Journal article rightly excludes; and notmentioning (no doubt for lack of an example) an English GreatSeal of this King recorded by Wyon. The resulting confusioncan only be explained by a table.

DESCRIPTIONS OF GREAT SEALS OF HENRY VIJourn. Brit. Arch. Assoc.Wyon ' Great Seals'

Silver SealGolden SealFirst Seal for French

AffairsSecond Seal for French

AffairsThird Seal for French

AffairsFourth Seal for French

AffairsThird Seal[Not described]

B.M. Caia/ogue

First SealSecond SealFourth Seal

Seventh Seal

Third Seal (of Absence)

Sixth Seal

[Not described]Fifth Seal4

First Great Seal [as Kingof France]

Second Great Seal [asKing of France]

First Seal of Absence [asKing of France]

Second Seal of Absence[as King of France]

[Discussed and excluded]

I submit that the study of English Seals badly needs a standardlist of the Great Seals of English Sovereigns, conceived on asystem which should allow of the inclusion of fresh examples ifand when they are discovered, and which should distinguish inan unmistakable manner normal Great Seals from special ones,and new Seals from new uses of old ones. The Society ofAntiquaries would bestow a great benefit on students if it couldsecure the publication of such a Catalogue.

1 Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, x\, 275.2 Vol. i, p. 41 . 3 Ibid., pp. 32-5.4 This is the seal of the Duke of Burgundy mentioned above.

the great seal of england: some notes and suggestions

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