It may be remarked, that in consequence of the king's long absence from England for the prosecution of his designs upon the throne of France, he was driven to the expedient of adopting two great seals, one which was used during his presence in England, and which he always took with him to employ abroad; and another which was used during his absence from England, and upon his return was always laid up in the treasury or elsewhere, until his next departure. The great seals of his reign are thus divided into two classes, which I shall for the sake of distinction call the seals of presence and the seals of absence; and the designs of each of them were changed several times, as we have partly seen already. Thus after the destruction of his grandfather's matrix A, B the first seal of presence was made. C was the first seal of absence; D, the second seal of presence, made in assertion of his new title, was destroyed when he left the kingdom to return to Flanders; and we now resume the narrative immediately after a second seal of absence, E, has been by him put into the hands of the new chancellor.
On the 30th of November of the same year, 1340, the king returned to England, and the next morning the bishop of Chichester came to him, and delivered up the great seal E, committed to him for the government of the kingdom of England during the king's absence, which seal the king received and gave in charge to William de Kildesby, his keeper of the privy seal, to keep in the mean time. And on the following Saturday, William brought this seal E, and another great seal F, which the king had brought with him from foreign parts, and delivered them to the king, who commanded that from henceforth the said seal F, which he had brought from abroad, should be used in the kingdom of England[1].
After this, the king, upon five several occasions during the next twenty years[2], left the kingdom in prosecution of his designs; and, upon his quitting it, a document always occurs in Rymer noting the formal exchange by the chancellor of the great seal made to be used when he is in the kingdom, for that which is made to be used in his absence;
- ↑ "Aliud magnum sigillum dicti domini regis quod idem dominus rex secum à dictis partibus transmarinis detulit . . . ." "Et etiam idem dominus rex præcepit quod dicto sigillo, quod sic de prædictis partibus transmarinis delatum fuit extune in regno suo Angliæ uteretur." (Rymer, p. 1141.)
- ↑ Vide p. 25. below
