The Great Seal.
293
THE GREAT SEAL. PART II. — FROM CROMWELL TO VICTORIA. THE very remarkable Great Seal of the Commonwealth — shown at the end of Part I. of this account — was succeeded by Oliver Cromwell's first seal, which was used from about 1655 to 1657, and then the second seal of Cromwell was made : it is pictured in No. 17. Sir W. De Gray Birch, in his "Synopsis of the Great Seals," mentions one seal only; but Wyon, in his " Great Seals of England," actually shows two seals of Crom well, and although the differences are not important, they are sufficiently appreciable to prove that, for some reason not known, Oliver had a new seal cut in about the year 1657. Wyon suggests : — "It may be that some restless suspicions, such as are known to have haunted the Great Protec tor in other matters, led him to order this new Great Seal without having any entry made of his having the Seal engraved, or of his reason for so doing." Under the body of the horse in No. 17 is a view of London, the Thames, some boats on the river, London Bridge, and Southwark. The legend of Cromwell's Great Seals is re markable as being the first in which the word republic was used, and the obverse is a shield charged with the arms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, surrounded by the legend: magnum: SIGILLUM : REIPUB: ANGLIAE: SCOTIAE: ET : HIBERNIAE, &Cte, and supported by a lion and a griffin, with a riband bearing the motto : " Pax quaeritur bello " {peace is sought by war), the Crom well motto. The shield in No. 17, behind Cromwell, has in its center a small escut cheon of pretence charged with a lion ram pant, the Cromwell arms. Richard Cromwell's Great Seal was nearly identical with his father's : the face on the reverse was altered, and the legend contained "Richardus" in place of " Olivarius."
On May 25, 1660, Charles II. landed at Dover, and on May 28, the Commons re solved to deface the Great Seal of the Re public. Accordingly, and on the day before Charles entered London, the offending seal was forthwith delivered to Sir Harbottle Grimston, the speaker, and " being laid up on the clerk's table, a smith was sent for, who broke it in pieces while the House was sitting" (Campbell's " Lives"). This was the end of the Great Seal of the " Republic," a fate curiously identical with that of Charles I.'s Great Seal, mentioned in my last article. The following day — says Campbell — the two Houses of Parliament threw themselves on their knees before the King at Whitehall, and Lord Chancellor Hyde was seen carry ing the true Great Seal before him, in its red velvet purse, adorned with a representation of a royal crown and all the heraldic bear ings of an English monarch. Wyon sug gests that the Royalists probably had this seal made some years before Charles' res toration, in order to be prepared for all emergencies. The purse just referred to was of the same design as that shown in the frontispiece of this article, which is from a photograph of Lord Herschell's purse. It is a magnificent piece of work, about eighteen inches square; and formerly the Chancellor was entitled to a new purse every year, but now a new purse is provided only once in two years. I was told by a gentleman in the House of Lords to whom I owe many thanks for much valu able aid in preparing this account of the seals, that the wife of one of the Chancellors had had some of her chairs upholstered with her husband's collection of purses; and Lord Campbell states that Lady Hardwicke, the wife of one of George II. 's Chancellors, who held office for twenty years, availing
