of Norway infringed upon Ulfeldt’s functions as lord treasurer of the whole realm; in November 1647 Ulfeldt carried his point, and a decree was issued that henceforth the Norwegian provincial governors should send their rents and taxes direct to Copenhagen. On the accession of Frederick III. (1648), Sehested strove hard to win his favour; but an investigation into his accounts as viceroy, conducted by his enemies, brought to light such wholesale embezzlement and peculation that he was summoned to appear before a herredag, or assembly of notables, in May 1551, and give an account of his whole administration. Unable to meet the charges brought against him, he compromised matters by resigning his vice royalty and his senator ship, and surrendering all his private property in Norway to the crown. Throughout his trial Sehested had shown consummate prudence. He surrendered voluntarily thrice as much as he had ever embezzled, and, calculating on the secret fondness of Frederick III. for a man of his monarchical tendencies, carefully abstained from the wild and treasonable projects of revenge which were the ruin of Kortits Ulfeldt. From 1651 to 1660 he lived abroad. At the end of 1655 he met the exiled Charles II. of England at Cologne, and lived a part of the following year with him in the Spanish Netherlands. In the summer of 1657 he returned to Denmark, but Frederick III. refused to receive him, and he hastily quitted Copenhagen. During the crisis of the war of 1658 he was at the headquarters of Charles X. of Sweden. In seeking the help and protection of the worst enemy of his country, Sehested approached the very verge of treason, but he never quite went beyond it. When, at last, it seemed probable that the war would not result in the annihilation of Denmark, Sehested strained every nerve to secure his own future by working in the interests of his native land while still residing in Sweden. In April 1660 he obtained permission from Frederick III. to come to Copenhagen, and was finally instructed by.him as plenipotentiary to negotiate with the Swedes. The treaty of Copenhagen, which saved the honour of Denmark and brought her repose, was very largely Sehested’s work. He was one of the willing abettors of Frederick III. at the revolution of 1660, when he re-entered the Danish service as lord treasurer and councillor of state. Both at home and on his frequent foreign missions he displayed all his old ability. As a. diplomatist he, in some respects, anticipated the views of Griffenfeldt, supporting the policy of friendship with Sweden and a French alliance. He died suddenly on the 23rd of September 1666 at Paris, where he was conducting important negotiations. His “political testament” is perhaps the best testimony to his liberal and statesmanlike views.
See Thyra Sehested, Hannibal Sehested (Copenhagen, 1886); Julius Albert Fridericia, Adelsvaeldens sidste Dage (Copenhagen, 1894). (R. N. B.)
SEHORE, a British station in Central India, within the state
of Bhopal, with a station on the Bhopal-Ujjain section of the
Indian Midland railway, 24 m. E. from Bhopal. Pop. (1901)
16,864. It is the headquarters of the political agent for Bhopal,
and a British military cantonment. For many years it was also
the headquarters of the Bhopal contingent, raised in 1818,
which was in 1903 incorporated in the Indian army. It is an
important centre of trade.
SEICHE (Fr. séche, fem. of sec, dry), in limnology, an irregular
fluctuation of the water-level of lakes, first observed and so
named in Switzerland. (See LAKE, and GENEVA.)
SEIDL, ANTON (1850–1898), Hungarian operatic conductor,
was born at Budapest on the 7th of May 1850. He entered the
Leipzig Conservatorium in October 1870, and remained there
until 1872, when he was summoned to Bayreuth as one of
Wagner’s copyists. There he assisted to make the first fair copy
of Der Ring des Nibelungen. Thoroughly imbued with the
Wagnerian spirit, it was natural that he should take a part in
the first Bayreuth Festival in 1876. His chance as a conductor
came when, on Wagner’s recommendation, he was appointed
to the Leipzig Stadt-Theater, where he remained until, in 1882,
he went on tour with Angelo Neumann’s Nibelungen Ring companv.
To his conducting the critics attributed much of such
artistic success as attended the production of the Trilogy at Her
Majesty’s Theatre in London in June of that year. In 1883
Seidl went with Neumann to Bremen, but two years later was
appointed successor to Leopold Damrosch as conductor of the
German Opera in New York, and in the same year he married
Friiulein Kraus, the distinguished singer. In America. Seidl’s
orchestra became famous. In 1886 he was one of the conductors
at Bayreuth, and in 1897 at Covent Garden, London, He died
in New York on the 28th of March 1898.
See the memorial volume prepared by H. T. Finck, H. E. Krehbiel and others (New York, 1899).
SEIGNIORAGE, the due levied by the authority that possesses
the right of coining on the metal that it manufactures into coin.
The term “ brassage ” has been used to describe this due, when
confined to the mere cost of the process; the wider term “ seigniorage ”
being employed when the charge is so raised as to
become a profit to the imposer. The exercise of the right of
seignior age has been the instrument by which most of the
debasements of currency have been carried out. Under feudalism,
especially in France, the chief nobles had this prerogative.
In the modern state it is reserved for the sovereign authority.
Most countries adopt a moderate seignior age charge. Thus the
fundamental currency law of France (1803) provides that “ only
the expense of coining ” shall be charged. At present this due
is 6 fr. 70 c. per kilo. of gold 9⁄10 fine, or 0.24%. The charge by
the same law on silver was 3 fr. per kilo. or 1.66%. The limitation
on the coinage of silver in practically all countries has made
the seigniorage on that metal very heavy. The policy of England
in respect to gold has been peculiar. Since 1664 it has been freed
from any charge, though the delay in return amounts to a small
due. In consequence of this gratuitous coinage, English gold
has been regarded as equivalent to bullion, and exchange fluctuations
have been reduced. The policy was severely criticized by
Adam Smith, and it does in fact amount to a bounty on the
coinage of gold. The amount is, however, too insignificant to
deserve attention, especially as there are compensating gains.
The employment of a seigniorage of about 1% on the
“ sovereign ” was suggested by the proceedings of the Paris
Monetary Conference of 1867, in order to bring about an assimilation
of English and French money. By reducing the amount of
gold in the sovereign to that in the proposed 25-franc piece an
exact par would have been created, and, so it was hoped, the
English currency and accounts need have undergone no change.
The scheme was, however, rejected by a Royal Commission on
the ground that an adjustment of obligations would be required.
The theory of the effects that a seignior age produces have been discussed at length. The definitive results obtained may be brieiiy stated as follows:—(1) A seigniorage charge is the same as a debasement, but its evil effect may be avoided by limiting the amount of coin issued. (2) Seigniorage operates as a tax on the metal subject to it, and this tax tends ultimately to fall on the producers, or rather on the rent obtained through the production. A heavy seigniorage on gold would tend to lower the profits derived from the gold mines of the world, and might even compel the abandonment of the least productive ones.
See Money, Monetary Conferences, and Token Money. (C. F. B.)
SEIGNORY, or Seigniory (Fr. seigneur, lord; Lat. senior, elder),
in English law, the lordship remaining to a grantor after the grant
of an estate in fee-simple. There is no land in England without
its lord: “Nulle terre sans seigneur” is the old feudal maxim.
Where no other lord can be discovered the crown is lord as lord
paramount. The principal incidents of a seignory were an oath
of fealty; a “quit” or “chief” rent; a “relief” of one year’s
quit rent, and the right of escheat. In return for these privileges
the lord was liable to forfeit his rights if he neglected to protect
and defend the tenant or did anything injurious to the feudal
relation. Every seignory now existing must have been created
before the Statute of Quia Emptores (1290), which forbade the
future creation of estates in fee-simple by subinfeudation.
The only seignories of any importance at present are the lordships
of manors. They are regarded as incorporeal hereditaments,
