France; (No. 2.) with "rex Francie" and "Edwardus;" (No. 3.) with "Ricardus;" (No. 4.) with "Henricus." In this fourth state it is called the seal of Henry IV. by Speed and Sandford. But Henry IV. also made a seal (I) which is the richest and largest of all the medieval seals of England. It is engraved by Speed and Sandford as the seal of Henry v., and therefore needs no minute description. However its distinguishing characteristics are that there are three vertical compartments of equal breadth on each side of the central one, and that the arms, which in all the other seals after D inclusive are placed on shields, are in this seal placed on square banners sustained by guards. It has no less than eighteen figures including animals. Its legend contains "Anglie et Francie." Wailly was the first to assign it to Henry IV. on the authority of an impression, dated 1408, in the French archives. And I have found one in the archives of Corpus Christi college, dated 1409, (11 H. IV.,) which confirms this statement. This is the first English seal in which the fleurs-de-lis semèe of France are changed for the three fleurs-de-lis; the latter appeared for the first time upon the French seal of Charles V., to which Wailly assigns the date 1364.
The seals of our three Henries (IV. V. VI.) are so mixed together that I must pursue the history of them all in Rymer to the end of Henry VI., before I can explain the whole of their devices.
In the 11 H. IV. one of the usual documents in Rymer recording the delivery of the great seal terms it the golden seal, "Magnum Sigillum Aureum," and the same phrase is used in 5 H. V.[1] But in the other similar documents before and after we find only "Magnum Sigillum" as usual. Immediately after the death of Henry V. it is recorded that the chancellor, bishop of Durham, delivered up the great Golden seal of the late king on the 28th of September, 1422, (1 H. VI.) which was finally deposited in the treasury on the 20th of November[2]. The bishop of Durham, however, was made chancellor to the new king and received the great seal[3] on the 17th
- ↑ Rymer, tom. viii. p. 616; xlix. p. 472. In the Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique we are told "that Henry V. took his seals with him to war. In the history of the House of Auvergne it is related that the Seigneur de Haucourt was made prisoner by the king of England in 1415, and having obtained permission to return to France he recovered the seals of the English Chancery, which the English king had lost with many jewels at the battle of Agincourt." Tom. iv. p. 212.
- ↑ Rymer, tom. x. p. 253.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 262.
