The Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, and later of Great Britain, was formerly an officer of the
English Crown charged with
physical custody
Child custody is a legal term regarding '' guardianship'' which is used to describe the legal and practical relationship between a parent or guardian and a child in that person's care. Child custody consists of ''legal custody'', which is the righ ...
of the
Great Seal of England.
This position evolved into that of one of the
Great Officers of State
Government in medieval monarchies generally comprised the king's companions, later becoming the Royal Household, from which the officers of state arose, initially having household and government duties. Later some of these officers became ...
.
History
The seal was adopted by
Edward the Confessor, and its custody was at first entrusted to a
chancellor
Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
. The office of chancellor from the time of
Thomas Becket
Thomas Becket (), also known as Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas of London and later Thomas à Becket (21 December 1119 or 1120 – 29 December 1170), was an English nobleman who served as Lord Chancellor from 1155 to 1162, and then ...
onwards varied much in importance. The holder being a churchman, he was not only engaged in the business of his
diocese
In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop.
History
In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associat ...
, but was sometimes away from England. Consequently, it became not unusual to place the personal custody of the great seal in the hands of a ''vice-chancellor'' or ''keeper''; this was also the practice followed during a temporary vacancy in the chancellorship.
This office gradually developed into a permanent appointment, and the lord keeper acquired the right of discharging all the duties connected with the great seal. He was usually, though not necessarily, a
peer
Peer may refer to:
Sociology
* Peer, an equal in age, education or social class; see Peer group
* Peer, a member of the peerage; related to the term "peer of the realm"
Computing
* Peer, one of several functional units in the same layer of a net ...
, and held office during the
king's pleasure. He was appointed merely by delivery of the seal, and not, like the chancellor, by
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling disclo ...
.
His status was definitely fixed (in the case of lord keeper
Sir Nicholas Bacon) by the
Lord Keeper Act 1562 (5 Eliz 1 c. 18), which declared him entitled to ''like place, pre-eminence,
jurisdiction
Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels.
Ju ...
, execution of laws, and all other
customs,
commodities
In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them.
The price of a co ...
, and advantages'' as the
Lord Chancellor
The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. T ...
. In subsequent reigns the lord keeper was generally raised to the chancellorship, and retained the custody of the seal.
The last lord keeper was
Robert Henley, afterwards Earl of Northington, who was made chancellor on the accession of
George III
George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...
.
Curiosity
A pub-restaurant in the town of
Oadby
Oadby is a town in the borough of Oadby and Wigston in the county of Leicestershire, England. Oadby is a district centre south east of Leicester city centre on the A6 trunk road. Leicester Racecourse is situated on the border between Oadby ...
,
Leicestershire is named the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal to honour
Sir Nathan Wright
Sir Nathan Wright (1654–1721) was an English judge, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal under King William III of England, William III and Queen Anne, Queen of Great Britain, Anne. He offended the House of Commons by his use of ''habeas corpus'' in 1 ...
, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal from 1700 to 1705, who was later lord of the manor of Oadby.
See also
*
Chafe-wax
A chafe-wax, or chaff-wax, was an officer under the Lord Chancellor, whose duty it was to prepare the wax for sealing documents. The office was abolished in 1852.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest written reference was in ...
*
Great Seal of the Realm
The Great Seal of the Realm or Great Seal of the United Kingdom (known prior to the Treaty of Union of 1707 as the Great Seal of England; and from then until the Union of 1801 as the Great Seal of Great Britain) is a seal that is used to sy ...
*
Great Seal of Scotland
The Great Seal of Scotland ( gd, Seala Mòr na h-Alba) is a principal national symbol of Scotland that allows the monarch to authorise official documents without having to sign each document individually. Wax is melted in a metal mould or matrix ...
(held by the First Minister since 1999)
*
Great Seal of Northern Ireland
The Great Seal of Northern Ireland is the seal used for Northern Ireland. The great seal is in the possession of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The Great Seal was created by the Irish Free State (Consequential Provisions) Act 1922 o ...
(held by the Secretary of State since 1973)
*
Welsh Seal (held by the First Minister since 2011)
*
List of Lord Chancellors and Lord Keepers
*
Lord Chancellor
The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. T ...
*
Lord Privy Seal
*
Privy Seal
A privy seal refers to the personal seal of a reigning monarch, used for the purpose of authenticating official documents of a much more personal nature. This is in contrast with that of a great seal, which is used for documents of greater impor ...
References
{{reflist
Political history of England
Constitution of the United Kingdom