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Importance has been given to signets in England. This was at a time when the schoolmaster had not made many penmen. “And how great a regard was had to seals,” says Collins, in his Baronage, “appears from these testimonies; the Charter of King Henry I. to the Abbey of Evesham, being exhibited to King Henry III. and the seal being cloven in sunder, the King forthwith caused it to be confirmed,” etc., etc.; “and in 13 Ed. III., when, by misfortune, a deed, then showed in the Chancery, was severed from the seal, in the presence of the Lord Chancellor and other noble persons, command was not only given for the affixing it again thereto, but an exemplification was made thereof under the Great Seal of England, with the recital of the premises. And the counterfeiting of another man’s seal was anciently punished with transportation, as appears from this record in the reign of King John,” etc., etc. “It is also as remarkable that in 9 H. III. c. c. marks damages were recovered by Sir Ralph de Crophall, Knight, against Henry de Grendon and William de Grendon for forcibly breaking a seal from a deed. Also so tender was every man in those times of his seal, that if he had accidentally lost it, care was taken to publish the same, lest another might make use of it to his detriment, as is manifested in the case of Benedict de Hogham,” etc. “Also not much unlike to this is that of Henry de Perpount, a person of great quality, (ancestor of his Grace the Duke of Kingston,) who, on Monday, in the Octaves of St. Michael, 8 Ed. I., came into the Chancery at Lincoln and publicly declared, that he missed his seal; and protested, that if any instrument should be signed with that seal, for the time to come, it should be of no value or effect. Nor is that publication made by John de Greseley of Drakelow, in Com. Derb. 18 R. II., upon the loss of his seal, less considerable,” etc., etc.[94]