THE CHANCELLOR.]
ORDER OF SAINT PATRICK.
81
THE CHANCELLOR.
This Office is annexed to the Archiepiscopal See of Dublin, but instead ofthe Statutes containing an express provision to that effect, the junction is thusstated in the Article which ordains that the Suffrages at Elections shall betaken by the Chancellor: “ the which denominations the Chancellor of thesame Order shall write; that is to wit, the Archbishop of Dublin for the timebeing.” 6
It is provided that the Chancellor shall keep the Seal of the Order, andthat “ if he should depart or go forth twenty miles far from the Sovereign, heshall then deliver the Seal to the Registrar, Secretary, or Genealogist, or toany other person that it shall please the Sovereign to ordain or appoint,” 7 butit is difficult to understand in what manner the Archbishop of Dublin canperform this part of the Chancellor’s duties. Each incumbent of that Seeis necessarily separated for the greater part of his life, not by twenty miles only,but by the Irish Channel, from the Sovereign; and though he resides near theGrand Master, and at the place where the proceedings of the Order usuallyoccur, yet, according to the Statutes, he cannot retain the custody of the Sealunless the Sovereign be also in Ireland, but is directed to deliver it to an inferiorfunctionary. It is needless to observe that this could not have been intended,and that it is not adopted in practice; but the Ordinance is easily accountedfor. It was copied from the Statutes of the Garter, in which Order the regu-lation is proper and consistent.
Besides taking the Suffrages, the Chancellor was to pronounce the Admo-nitions, 8 but this duty was afterwards assigned to the Prelate. 9 It would appearthat the Chancellor is to reclaim the Collars and Badges of the deceasedKnights; and by the Ordinance of the 8th of June 1809, the sum of onehundred pounds was granted to him upon his delivering them to the Grand
6 Art. VIII. p. 12, antea.8 Art. XV. p. 14, antea.
7 Art. XVIII. p. 15, antea.
9 Vide pp. 68, 69, note, antea.