NEW SEAL OF REALM

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 April 1938, Page 10

NEW SEAL OF REALM

| KING DEFACES OLD SYMBOL. J LONDON, March 3. j The King, who returned to Bucklingham Palace yesterday with the , Queen from Royal Lodge, Windsor, I held a. Privy Council last night*. ' Viscount. Halifax kissed, the Kign’s band on his appointment and received from his Majesty his seal of office. j At the same Council the King nand.ed to Viscount Hailsham, the Lord i Chancellor, the new Great Seal of the Realm which has been designed 1-y Air AT. G. Kruger Gray. With ;i metal hammer his Alajesty “demasked” the old Great Seal, inflicting a. blow; sufficient to render it void. He then handed it, ini accordance with traditional usage, to Lord Hailsliani to retain as a family heirloom.

} Sir John Simon. Chancellor of the ■Exchequer, was also present at 1 the i Council. I Many stories are told of the Great Seal of the Realm. Lord Chancellor Eldon, in the reign of George HI. used to sleep with it' under his pillow. One day his? house caught fire and he buried it in the garden for safety. Next day he could not remember where he had-hidden it. Lord Eldon’s, family joined in a frantic search at dawn, and it was found in a flower bed. James IL, when he fled, threw the Great Seal into the Thames. But, by an extraordinary chance, fishermen drew it up in their hets' near Lambeth, and it was brought to the Prince of Orange., who by that time had been proclaimed King of England. In Richard I.’s reign, the Seal was

lost when his Chancellor, who was wearing it round his neck, fell into the sea and was drowned. During the reign of Queen Victoria :the Great Seal had' to be replaced four times owing to its ornamentation having become worn.