84

HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF

[THE SEAL.

Instruments relating to the Order shall be signed by the Sovereign, and shallpass under its Seal ; 3 and the present Statutes direct that they shall be counter-signed by the Chancellor. 4 In these regulations the precedents of the otherBritish Orders were strictly followed, it being an essential part of their constitu-tion that no Seal shall (to use a technical expression) “ work” within them,except their own, and the signature of the Custos of such Seal has always beendeemed sufficient to give full validity to the Instrument to which it is affixed.This usage, which still prevails in the Orders of the Garter and SaintPatrick, in which there is a Chancellor, and even in that of the Thistle, ofwhich a Secretary is the executive Officer, was also observed for more thantwenty years in that of Saint Michael and Saint George; 5 but it will be seenfrom the Statutes of, and after October 1839, that the Instruments are nowcountersigned by the Secretary of State, as well as by the Chancellor; 6 andthey are passed both under the Seal of that Office, and under the Seal of theOrder.

If the Chancellor failed to represent, that such a practice would be incon-sistent with the constitution of the Order, and with the prerogative upon whichthe Sovereign has hitherto insisted, namely, that no other Seal than that of theOrder itself shall operate within any of His Orders, 7 and that it would moreoverbe anomalous and unprecedented, he omitted to perform a most important partof his duty.

It can scarcely be necessary to observe that when the Crown, by LettersPatent, delegates the power of the Great Seal, and commands that, for par-ticular purposes, Instruments shall be issued under the Royal Sign Manual, andunder any particular Seal, which for such purposes shall be tantamount toLetters Patent, no other Seal can properly be used; and it is an universal rule,that the signature of the Custos of a Seal is the proper evidence that it has beenemployed by due authority. Every Instrument that proceeds from the Crown,whether a Warrant under the Signet (or other official Seal of the Secretary ofState), a Writ under the Privy Seal, or Letters Patent under the Great Seal,

3 Vide pp. 8, 41, antea. 4 Art. X. p. 51, antea.

5 This innovation on the general usage first occurred in June 1838, while Lord Glenelg was Secre-

tary of State for the Colonial Department. Before the appointment of a Chancellor, the Instrumentswere countersigned by the Secretary to the Order.

6 Vide pp. 67, 69, antea.

7 Vide the History of the Order of the Garter, pp. 221, 230.