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 rig ...

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. These officers initially had household and governmental duties. Later some of these offic ...

History

The seal was adopted by

Edward the Confessor Edward the Confessor ( 1003 – 5 January 1066) was King of England from 1042 until his death in 1066. He was the last reigning monarch of the House of Wessex. Edward was the son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy. He succeede ...

, and its custody was at first entrusted to a

chancellor Chancellor () is a title of various official positions in the governments of many countries. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the (lattice work screens) of a basilica (court hall), which separa ...

. 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), served as Lord Chancellor from 1155 to 1162, and then as Archbishop of Canterbury fr ...

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, prov ...

, 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. 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 discl ...

. 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 Parliament (United Kingdom), 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 o ...

(5 Eliz 1 c. 18), which declared him entitled to ''like place, pre-eminence,

jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' and 'speech' or 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, the concept of jurisdiction applies at multiple level ...

, execution of laws, and all other

customs Customs is an authority or Government agency, agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling International trade, the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out ...

commodities In economics, a commodity is an economic good, usually a resource, that specifically 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. Th ...

, and advantages'' as the

Lord Chancellor The Lord Chancellor, formally titled Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom. The lord chancellor is the minister of justice for England and Wales and the highest-ra ...

. 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 King of Ireland, Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820. The Acts of Union 1800 unified Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and ...

References

{{reflist Political history of England Constitution of the United Kingdom

History

See also

References