There used to be a practice in which the monarch honorarily gave his royal seals away to someone as their personal seals or official seals. The royal seals given away could be ones which the monarch previously used or ones which he ordered to be newly created. Once given away, they would no longer be called royal seals, as only the ones being used by the monarch would specifically be called as such. Once the recipient of a personal seal was no longer alive, the seal had to be returned. If the office for which a seal was given had been dissolved, the seal needed to be returned likewise. No person could continue affixing or using such a seal. Later, official seals were often ones created by their owners themselves before requesting licence from the monarch, rather than ones given away by the monarch as before.
In addition, before the practice of using golden cards, silver cards, and commissions to confer titles upon royal and official personages came into being, it is known that there was a royal practice of using writs to appoint someone something. Thus, it is my understanding that appointing a secretary of state was effected by granting a royal seal as his official seal, upon which the secretary would be considered to have been granted full powers according to the Charter.[b 1] From then on, the secretary would be able to deal with public affairs on his own by using sealed missives to transmit the king’s commands. Later in the reign of
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