Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1904-06-18
BRITISH GREAT SEAL
STRANGE ADVENTURES OF THIS EN-
BLEM OF SOVEREIGNTY.


1t seems almost ludicrously impos~
sible that the great seal of England
should have ever been made to serve
the humble purpose of a frying pan;
and yet this Is only one of many equal
ly strange episodes in the romantic
story of the seal which is the specific
emblem of British sovereignty"
Lord Chancellor Eldon was SO fearful
that the seal would be lost or stolen
while in his custody that he never
went to sleep without first satisfying
himself that it was safe in his bedroom.
One night-it was in the year 1S12--he
was reused from his slumbers by cries
Of "Firev' Jumping out of bed he
snatched up the great seal and, rush
ing into the garden, buried it deep in
the middle Of a flower bed. His house
might be burned to the ground, but at
least he would not prove unworthy Of
the great trust which had been reposed
In him.
Next morning, however-so exciting
had been the experiences of the night
he had completely forgotten in what
part Of the garden the emblem of SOW
ereignty had been hidden, and it was
only after his entire household had
hunted for hours that 1t was at last
run to earth. "You never saw anything
so ridiculous" he wrote later, "as see-
ing the whole family down the walks
dibbling with bits Of sticks until we
found it,"
Once at least the great seal has been
at the bottom o. the Thames and
would be there today but for lucky
accident. 1t was in 1858, when the
second James was fleeing from Eng
land and the Prince of Orange to
France, in company with Sir Edward
Hales. He had intended to take the
great seal with him, but as he was
being rowed from Lambeth to Vaux-
hail. where horses were awaiting him,
another and better idea occurred to
him. He would fling the seal into the
river, and that would place it once for
all out of reach Of his enemy. So over
board the seal went, and for some
weeks it lay there until by curious
chance it was picked up in fisher
mans net and restored to the proper
custodians.
The ludicrous frying pan adventure
befell it when in the custody Of Lord
Brougham. The chancellor had gone
to Scotland for a short holiday seeing
that he could not take the seal on the
Rhine trip he longed for without put
ting it in commission at great cost to
himself-and he was guest of the
dowager Duchess Of Bedford at Rothie-
murchus, where he kept his precious
charge in his bedroom. One day the
young ladies Of the house party took
the seal from the bedroom and hid it,
Brougham was desperate when he dis
covered his loss and did not recover
his peace of mind until the pretty
thieves promised to lead him to it if he
would consent to be blindfolded.
With his eyes bandaged he was con-
Quoted to the drawing room, and there
he discovered the seal hidden in tea
chest SO overjoyed was he at it's re-
covery that he consented to the young
ladies' suggestion that they should adj
11s3Tirn to the kitchen and celebrate the
joyous event by making pancakes in
the seal, and thus, amid much laughter,
the greatest emblem of sovereignty in
the whole world was actually used as a
pan in which to fry pancakes. The
seal, it should perhaps be mentioned,
consists Of two silver disks hinged to-
gether, so that when they are closed
they form a mold, into which the wax,
green, red or yellow, as the case may
be, is poured. Thus it would make not
at all a bad substitute for the common
or kitchen frying pan.
Many a time has the great seal been
taken to the house of lords and broken
to pieces at the bar by the hammer OF
a sturdy blacksmith, amid the frantic
cheering of unlocking members This
was the fate of the seal which fell into
the hands Of the parliamentary army
on the capitulation of Oxford in 1916.
Three years later the old parliamentary
seal. which represented Charles en-
throned on one side and riding Oh horse
back on the other, was similarly de-
stroyed to make way for the new seal
with it's view of the house of commons
in place Of the deposed sovereign.
Richard CromwelPs seal was broken
by the hammer in 1859, and in the fol
lowing year the great seal of the COM
monwealth itself was destroyed in the
same way.
Once the seal was lost, by Charles Ii.
in his fight from the fatal field OF Wor-
cester, and once it was stolen by bur-
glars from Lord Thurlow's house in
Great Ormond street, but it was re-
placed by replica in the wonderfully
short time of thirty-six hours. The
seal that was in use when George Nv.
died was divided between Lord Lynd-
hurst and Lord Brougham, King Will
liam Nv. presenting one side to each
chancellor, mounted in a magnificent
salver, and a similar present was made
in later years to Lords Chelmsford and
Campbell and to Lords Selborne and
q 4ol, Nxs