Cloth Seal, Suffolk, Alnage, L R Ligate, 1605 onwards
Cloth Seal, Suffolk, Alnage, L R Ligate, 1605 onwards, Image & Found by James Crombie.
Found in Yorkshire, 20 x 13mm.
One disc of a four disc alnage seal, LR ligate beneath a ducal coronet with SUFF OLKE to sides all in a border of pellets.
A Lennox and Richmond alnage seal for Suffolk. 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.