THE SEALS OF OFFICE

Hokitika Guardian, 25 July 1929, Page 2

THE SEALS OF OFFICE

(By DlilttlOT MORE AH, M.A., Sometime Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.)

A good deal of the constitutional history of England groups itself round the seals of office which the King has handed over to his new Ministers. The oldest way of “ signing ” a document was by affixing a. seal. King John did not sign Magna Carta with a quill pen, but by putting on the Great Seal off England. This Great Seal.has been from time immemorial the formal instrument of sovereign power; and the Lord Chancellor is its child. A Chancellor i\as originally the keeper of a seal; everv pied novel personage of note had his chancellor or 'secretary; and tue King’s Chancellor was “Secretary of State f r all departments.” Rut our early kings were always losing control over their secretaries. The Chancellor gradually became less arid less the King’s personal secretary and more and more a public official; and the King found that he was “signing” with his seal documents he had never seen. So he invented a new seal for his more personal use, called the Pri/y Sea 1 ., and appointed a lord to take charge of it. .;

• Exactly 'the. same thing happened again. The; Lord Privy Seal became just ns much a public-functionary ;as the Lord Chancellor; so ; the 1 Tudors started afresh with what they called (the little seal, or Signet. .This vias •kept by the secretary of- the King’s ('personal) estate,, but history. repeated it&ellf and the “e” of “estate” scion got mislaid, i Queen Elizabeth’s; Secretary ofi State governed England- under the,authority of the Signet. , , To-day the King conducts his personal correspondence through his private secretary, and liis, “sign manual” or autograph has for many purposes taken the place of a seal; but constitutional historians will not be surprised if in the course of time Lord Stamfordham’s successors blossom out into political personages, and someone even 1 intimately associated with the King has to be brought in to deal with 1 is personal papers, ...

1 .The three priiifcipal seals were taken oiferj the'Great Seal by the- Lord .'Chancellor, the Privyi Seal by its own-Lord Keeper,' • and tliei Signet by 'the- Horiie Secretary as sehioir of the 1 Secretaries of State, i i -All other seals :are of minor importance except one', whose- nhiAtopy perhaps illustrates > best of all: i v the power that; once resided in-.seals.; I i When the Council of:the Plpntagenet '•-ings sat for finna'inl‘business at their chequered table, they employed a kind rif clerk 'to keep Itlieir 1 sdal, the seal of the exchequer. They called him their chancellor, and treated him as a hired servant. But, because he held the seal, he gradually drew to himself all their financial authority. For centuries he took a back seat in comparison with the Lord High Treasurer; but in the eighteenth century that august person-* age'gave'way to Lords Commissioners ; and to-day the Treasury is not ruled by its nominal 1 chief,': the First Lord, Prime :*iiriister though he generally is,but by: the inominal servant.' the Chancellor, the man who keeps the seal.!