Casgliadau Arlein

Obverse. An elaborate seal, reflecting the Perpendicular style of architecture then in vogue, shewing the king enthroned beneath a canopy, flanked by highly decorative side niches and panels. Seated and crowned, the monarch holds in his left hand an orb, in his right hand a sceptre, both topped by a cross; his face resembles that on his recumbent statue on his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral. . In three small niches of the canopy, the Virgin and Child, with dext. a king crowned, and sin. a martyr holding a palm. Adorning the plinth below the monarch’s feet, three small shields: dext. a lion rampant within a border engrailed, DUCHY OF CORNWALL, centre: three feathers, PRINCIPALITY OF WALES, sin. three garbs, EARLDOM OF CHESTER. In the uppermost immediate lateral niches, dext. St Michael, and sin. St George, both (Wyon sees) trampling a dragon; in the niches beneath, dext. St Edward the Confessor; sin. St Edmund, King and Martyr; in the further niches, dext. a man-at-arms holds a banner charged with: quarterly, the arms of ENGLAND (the leopards/lions reversed to face the king) and of FRANCE (Modern), and above the niche an angel supports a shield: a cross between ? four martlets, attributed to EDWARD THE CONFESSOR; sin. a man-at-arms holds a banner charged with the arms of ENGLAND alone, above which, an angel supports a shield: three crowns, for ST EDMUND; in the outermost panels occur the symbols of the four evangelists: eagle, angel, winged lion and ox. The words of the legend are separated by a S-shaped scroll uniting two small quatrefoils