A George IV early 19^th century unmarked gold seal, circa 1820

Fluted domed form with a foliate chased edge and central stem. The carnelian seal intaglio cut with an impaled coat of arms below a crest of a hemp braye, with the motto Broye Non Brise below, in a Roman setting.

Height – 3.5 cm / 1.4 inches

Gross weight – 15 grams / 0.48 ozt

The crest and motto are for Bree

The arms are a varient for Dudley of Barnwell & Clopton, Northamptonshire impaling Bree with another on escutcheon of pretence impaling a varient for Blencowe

for Elizabeth Dudley née Bree (1752-1823), the daughter of Rev Thomas Bree (1716-1778) and the wife of Thomas Dudley (1749-1825), whom she married in 1776.

The inclusion of an escutcheon of pretence was presumably to indicate that the arms holder’s wife was an heiress. Although Elizabeth’s mother, Anne, had been the last surviving child of John Blencowe, she was not strictly his heiress. Her younger brother, also called John, had already inherited the family estates following their father’s death in 1740 and, although he himself died without issue in 1777, the estates had then passed to his nephew, Samuel Jackson, who coincidentally happened to be the child of Elizabeth’s elder sister Jane. So, although it was not strictly correct to include this escutcheon of pretence, it is possible that Elizabeth chose to honour her mother’s family by including the Blencowe arms in her seal.