The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1886-06-08
IhE CREAI SEAL OF ENGLAND.

The mere holding or the treat
Seal of England entities its FORUM
ate custodian to some $50, 200 a
year, to immense patronage in
Church and State, to he Speaker of
the House of Lords, a Privy Coun-
cllor, and the head of all judicial
authority in the Kingdom, to he de-
signated Lord High Chancellor of
Great Britain, and Keeper Of the
Royal Conscience, and to rank (next
TO the royal family) the second sub
ject in the realm. II is very diff
cult, il hot impossible, to say when
England first had great seal. Seals
were not much used by our Anglo
Saxon ancestors, but came largely
into fashion during the Norman
reigns. The gilt crosses or marks
of Edward the Confessor and other
Saxon kings can scarcely be called
seals, and partook more of the char
acter of signatures of an illiterate
age; but a grand and perfect seal of
William the Conqueror exists, hav
ing the monarch crowned and thron-
ed on the one side and mounted on
horseback on the other-attitude
which have been invariably observed
to the present day. One remarkable
circumstance connected with the
Great Seal is its progressive growth
in size as time advanced. Origin
ally, 800 years since, not larger than
the top of an ordinary modern tea
cup, it has been gradually enlarged
from age TO age, till it offers now
the size and appearance of a muffin,
and requires TO be inclosed in tin
box for protection. Indeed, so
cumbrous and unwieldy had the
Great Seal become that some three
or four years since an act of Parlia-
ment passed containing very extra
ordinary provisions, directing that
all the minor, and many even of the
more important documents passing
under it, should for the future be
authenticated by paper wafer, of
moderate size, which should be gum
med on the instrument, and be
deemed and taken TO be the Great
Seal itself.
The Great Seal has only three
times been lost-twice temporarily
and once permanently. James H.. +,
on leaving the Kingdom on his abdi-
cation, threw the seal into the
Thames, whence, however, it was
next morning fished up and brought
to Whitehall. Lord Eldon buried
it in his garden in Queen Square
during one night when his house
caught fire and he thought in the
confusion it might be stolen.
"And," writes the Chancellor in his
diary, "when the fire was extin-
guished / quite forgot in the morn
ing where I.had buried it, and while
the carriage waited to take me to
court, my lady and l and all the
household were digging with pieces
of stick, till we luckily found it,"
Lord Thurlow, who always held it
during the night in his bedroom,
had it actually carried off by burg
lars, from whom it was never re-
covered. A Privy Council was
called the next day, new seal was
rapidly made, and during the re-
mainder of his continuance in Office
Lord Thurlow invariably deposited
it of night under his pillow.
Down to 1918 the Great Seal
itself was made Of copper; since
then silver has been the metal en-
ployed. 1t is in two halves, some
what like two very thick bright tin
saucepan lids, fitting closely to-
gether, their inner surfaces deeply
sculptured with the royal devices
intended to be formed on the wax
when squeezed between them. In
struments having limited duration
are sealed with yellow wax. Others,
supposed to exist in perpetuity, such
as patents of peerage, etc., are ex-
emplified under green wax and in
the case of some letters patent
likely to be exposed to good dea
of knocking about or journeyinl
from place to place, such as were
the assize commissions, the wax sea
was stamped after being ingeniously
inclosed in cream-colored leather