A Very Good Impression of the Seal of the Court of Common Pleas used by Elizabeth I

Very Good Impression of the Court of Common Pleas, in wax, with vellum document tag embedded, slight wear to extremities but in excellent condition, 100 mm in diameter, 1581

Attached to a vellum document titled “The Exemplification for the Common Recovery of Property at Marks Hall” 

The seal of the Court of Common Pleas shows an impression of the Queen enthroned on the obverse and the royal arms on the reverse. The Court dealt with matters of property and was considered by Sir Edward Coke to be the “lock and key of the common law”. Sir James Dyer (1510-82) was perhaps the most well-known judge of Elizabethan England, was appointed as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas from 1559, gaining renown as a judge of near-unrivalled fairness and knowledge of the law .

Sir Thomas Honywood (1586-1666) was an English soldier during the English Civil War and later a Member of Parliament and also called to Parliament as Thomas, Lord Honywood. The seat of Marks Hall in Essex, descended to him on the death of his father, Robert Honywood, and on the outbreak of the Civil War it became the headquarters for the roundheads in Essex.

Provenance: Beeleigh Abbey