Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 10.pdf/324

 The Great Seal. that it was not until March 14 that the meeting of the Scotch Convention was held, at which, on April I1, the Estates of Scot land resolved that William and Mary. . . be declared King and Queen of Scotland. . . . Soon after this declaration a new Great Seal was ordered, which was to in clude the Arms of Scotland; but for some reason not known the warrant for this new seal was not executed — for the Great Seal of England, as in No. 18, remained un-



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that this new seal of Anne was rendered necessary by the Act of Union (between England and Scotland), which received the Royal assent on March 6, 1707, and which, amongst other things, provided that from and after the Union there should be " one Great Seal for the United Kingdom of Great Britain, which was to be different from the Great Seal previously in use in either king dom." The one Great Seal of George I.'s short

No. 18 Seal of William and Mary.

Period of use 1689 to 1695.

altered until the death of Mary, when an other seal was made for William alone, which included Scotland. Queen Anne's second seal is shown in No. 19, and for the first time the figure of Britannia is on the Great Seal of England; the other side of this seal shows the Queen enthroned. The Rose and the Thistle are given a prominent place in No. 19; they grow from one stem and are ensigned by a large Royal Crown. Wyon has recorded

Diameter 5.9 inches.

Ofoersc.

reign, No. 20, was held by four different Lord Chancellors: Lords Harcourt, Cowper, Macclesfield and King. This seal was held by Lord Macclesfield when, in 1725, he was driven out of office owing to the frauds committed on the suitors in the Court of Chancery, whose money had ' been made away with by the Masters in Chancery, to whose custody it had been entrusted. These men caught the infection of the South Sea Bubble, and the Chancel-