Great Seal of the Realm
The Great Seal of the Realm is a seal used by the British royalty to approve important documents. The current version was designed in 2001 by James Walter Butler .
history
The history of the British royal seal begins in the 11th century with Edward the Confessor , who was the first to express his consent to what was written with a wax print of his face on a document. Until 1603, when the personal union between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England was established, each subsequent monarch, with a few exceptions, chose a personal seal. The painter Levina Teerlinc is said to have designed the seal of Queen Maria I and her successor Elisabeth I around 1540 . In 1688, at the beginning of the Glorious Revolution , King James II threw the seal into the Thames before fleeing to France, which was interpreted by his opponents as an abdication.
A Great Seal of Scotland had existed since the 14th century . When the kingdoms of England and Scotland were united with the Act of Union 1707 , a separate seal was created for the newly formed Kingdom of Great Britain . In 2011 a new Welsh seal was introduced.
Seal of
Richard the Lionheart
17th century
1900
1953
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