After 135o, unhampered by wardrobe interference, for from that year the exchequer paid practically all costs and salaries, the office rapidly constituted itself into a public department, with headquarters at Westminster by 136o. It was extra curiam (out of court) before the i4th century closed, the process being hastened since, once the privy seal began to walk in the footsteps of the great seal, the king preferred another small seal for his personal service. This was the secret seal, secretum sigillum. As in the 13th and i4th centuries the privy seal was alternatively described as secretum sigillum, a habit which lingered on into Tudor times in the legend on the seal, some confusion is unavoid able. But early in Edward II.'s reign there was a secret seal dis tinct from the privy seal. It au thenticated the king's private correspondence, authorized the issue of privy seal writs, and soon was commonly used interchange ably with the privy seal as war ranty for letters under the great seal. It was consigned to the care of chamber clerks, of whom the receiver was its recognized custodian under Edward III. Be fore the 15th century dawned, the renamed signet was in charge of a clerk of the chamber who made his own the once less spe cialized title of king's secretary, secretarius regis (see SECRETARY OF STATE). The secret seal aped its forerunner still more closely by preparing to become in its turn a public instrument. The term signet was applied to the secret seal as early as 1337, yet in the fourth decade of the century it also denoted a different seal. In
1354 this, and a mysterious seal called sigrutim (sign) in use be tween 1338 and 1344, gave way to the nouel signet (new signet), the old secret seal in another guise. In the last 14 years of Richard II. there began to develop a signet office, staffed in Edward IV.'s time by four clerks.
The rise of the signet restricted the privy seal and in practice the signet was the originating force in administration. From 154o there were two secretaries, each having two signets. The Tudors advanced the signet to the position of a prerogative instrument, and the attitude to it of the 16th century opposition to the king was not unlike that of the baronial opposition to the privy seal of Edward II. The secretaries, with their seals, gradually drifted away from the signet office, which was not, however, abolished until 1851, long after it had ceased to be of value. Each mod ern secretary of State, of whom there are now seven, has two or three signets for different types of transactions. These even yet show something of their personal origin, for their custodians still receive the seals from the hands of the king on appointment, and are the means of communication between sovereign and people. The privy seal, and its office, were abolished in 1884, but the lord keeper, whose duties diminished as his dignity increased, was retained and is to-day a member of the cabinet (q.v.).
Another secret seal, the king's secret seal called the griffin, secre tum sigillum vocatum griffoun, was used between 1335 and for business connected with chamber lands (see CHAMBER, THE