Macaulay may be right about the great seal notwithstanding Trenchard's
pardon. It is just possible such documents may have been kept ready "cut
and dried" for filling up. Charles I. began to reign March 27, 1625. I know
of a pardon dated Feb. 10th in the first year of his reign, with the great
seal of _James I._ appended. Surely it did not take eleven months to cut a
new great seal, which seems the likeliest way of accounting for the use of
the old one.