Cloth Seal, Alnage, Lennox, L R Ligate, 1605 onwards

Cloth Seal, Alnage, Richmond & Lennox Ligate, Crown & Miter, Crown over L R Ligature, Image by StuE, Found by Nasher.
Found in the North Hertfordshire / Cambridgeshire area, 23x14mm, 4.3g.

LR ligate beneath a ducal coronet with LON DON to sides - the D is retrograde. The other side appears to have a bishops mitre with cross on top, decorations to sides and the figure 4 at its base all in a border of pellets.

The four is the amount of alnage subsidy. The ligature is similar to that on No.102, Fig.24 in G.Egan, 'Lead cloth seals and related items in the B.M. (B.M.occ.papers 93)' "The ligature is for one of the Dukes or Duchesses of Lennox and Richmond who held the alnage collection patent in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries." and ibid, p.10, "the Duke of Lennox ... was appointed alnager general for England and Wales in 1605."
Also WALTER ENDREI & GEOFF EGAN, The Sealing of Cloth in Europe, with Special Reference to the English Evidence:- "the 'Lenox' referred to is the second Duke, who was alnager-general for England and Wales from 1605 to 1624."

"The alnage was neglected in some areas during the Interregnum, but was reassigned in 1664 to the Duke of Lennox [obviously a descendant of the duke mentioned above] (whose family had held the right to the farm since 1605) and passed to his widow on his death in 1672" Heaton, The Yorkshire Woolen & Worsted Industries, 1965.

Linniage of the Dukes of Richmond and Lennox.