THE ECCLESIASTICAL SEALS OF CORNWALL. 3 5 



Chapel, Polruan ; * and, with, regard to these more enlightened 

 days, it is a pleasure to realize that our former gracious Presi- 

 dent, the eminent Prelate who was the first to use officially the 

 Seal of the Diocese of Truro (which seal rightly comes within 

 our list) now holds the very highest ecclesiastical seal of all, — 

 that of Canterbury, — as our deservedly beloved Archbishop and 

 the Primate of All England. 



The early Cornish Bishops, we may conclude, had no seals, 

 and as we have shut out from our list such as belong equally to 

 the Church over the border f we pass at once to those of the new 

 or restored See. 



THE SEALS OF THE BISHOPRIC OF TRURO. 

 The Blazon granted to this See, by the Heralds' College, was 

 composed by the Somerset herald, Mr. Stephen Isaacson Tucker, 

 when Rouge Croix. 



It is: — "Argent, on a saltire gules, a key ward-upward in 



bend, surmounted by a sword hilt-upward in bend 



sinister, both or. In base a fleur-de-lys sable. The 



whole within a bordure of the last, fifteen bezants. 



Ensigned with a mitre." 



The reason why Mr. Tucker decided on this combination, he 



tells me, was that he wished to illustrate the history of the 



Church in Cornwall. 



The red saltire on white, forming St. Patrick's cross, com- 

 memorates the arrival of early missionaries from Ireland, and 

 also the visit to that country (for theological study) of St. 

 Petrock the Briton, whose relics were eventually enshrined in 

 his own monastery at Bodmin, which became an abode of the 

 bishops. 



The sword and key placed as shewn are taken from an ancient 

 wood-carving, at St. Q-ermans, which is supposed by some to 

 refer to the bishopric seated there for a time. Perhaps, how- 

 ever, the carving may have been merely a fanciful or incorrect 

 representation of the arms of the See of Exeter. But in either 

 case the reference becomes sufficiently historical. 



* See Twenty-ninth Annual Repoi't Royal Institution of Cornwally 1817, 

 p. 57. 



t Oliver has figured the old seals of Bishops, Deans and Chapters of Exeter, 

 in his " Lives of the Bishops of Exeter." 



