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The Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, and later of Great Britain, was formerly an officer of the
English Crown This list of kings and reigning queens of the Kingdom of England begins with Alfred the Great, who initially ruled Wessex, one of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which later made up modern England. Alfred styled himself King of the Anglo-Sax ...
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 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 sym ...
. 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 Edward the Confessor ; la, Eduardus Confessor , ; ( 1003 – 5 January 1066) was one of the last Anglo-Saxon English kings. Usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex, he ruled from 1042 to 1066. Edward was the son of Æth ...
, 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 Ecclesiastical polity, 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 Roman province, pro ...
, 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, and held office during the
king's pleasure At His Majesty's pleasure (sometimes abbreviated to King's pleasure or, when the reigning monarch is female, at Her Majesty's pleasure or Queen's pleasure) is a legal term of art referring to the indeterminate or undetermined length of service of c ...
. 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 enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
. His status was definitely fixed (in the case of lord keeper Sir Nicholas Bacon) by the
Lord Keeper Act 1562 The Lord Keeper Act 1562 (5 Eliz 1 c 18) was an Act of the Parliament of England. It made the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal "entitled to like place, pre-eminence, jurisdiction, execution of laws, and all other customs, commodities, and advantage ...
(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. Jur ...
, execution of laws, and all other
customs Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, 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 comm ...
, 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. The ...
. 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 a ...
,
Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...
is named the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal to honour Sir Nathan Wright, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal from 1700 to 1705, who was later lord of the manor of Oadby.


See also

* Chafe-wax *
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 sym ...
*
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 ...
(held by the Secretary of State since 1973) *
Welsh Seal The Welsh Seal () is a seal used for Wales. Independent Wales Seals were used by the native Princes of Wales during Welsh independence. Llywelyn the Great On Llywelyn the Great' (Llywelyn ap Iorwerth) seal is dated to 1240. Llywelyn is pi ...
(held by the First Minister since 2011) *
List of Lord Chancellors and Lord Keepers The following is a list of Lord Chancellors and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Lord Keepers of the Great Seal of Kingdom of England, England and Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain. It also includes a list of Commissioners of Parliament's Gre ...
*
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. The ...
*
Lord Privy Seal The Lord Privy Seal (or, more formally, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal) is the fifth of the Great Officers of State (United Kingdom), Great Officers of State in the United Kingdom, ranking beneath the Lord President of the Council and abov ...
*
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