_First_ came the SIGNATURE. This was not, as the word would ordinarily import, and in England, a mere name signed, or mark, but an entire document, constituting the foundation of the proposed charter, and containing its essential elements. It is drawn up in English by a Writer to the Signet, and brought by him, on a given day, to a Baron of the Exchequer to be examined, in order to ascertain that it is correct, especially as to the "_reddendo_," or annual feu-money due to the Crown. On being satisfied of its accuracy, the Baron marks the signature as "revised;" and in due time the sign-manual is affixed to it. It is then complete--is recorded in the Exchequer Record--and retained by the Keeper of the Signet. There is subscribed to it only the date, and the words, "At Whitehall, [ ] the day of [ ] ." _Secondly_, Warranted by the possession of this revised "signature," the Keeper of the Signet issues a "_Precept to the Privy Seal_," which is simply a Latin translation of the English signature, and is recorded in the Privy Seal Office. That office then issues this precept to the Great Seal; and it is to be noted that this Privy Seal Precept has subscribed to it the words, "PER SIGNETUM," which seems to be an abbreviation of the words, "_per_ preceptum datum sub _signeto_ nostro." _Thirdly_, As soon as this Privy Seal Precept has reached the Chancery Office, the functionaries there draw up formally, and _in extenso_, THE CHARTER, which is sealed with the Great Seal; the Privy Seal Precept on which it is grounded either remaining in the Chancery Office, or being lodged in the General Records of Scotland. This completed Charter, alone, has a testing clause; and it is the Privy Seal Precept only which bears, as we have seen, the words "_per signetum_." See, then, the origin, progress, and completion of a Royal Charter in 1639--SIGNATURE; PRIVY SEAL PRECEPT; CHARTER; each having its appropriate depositary or record--the Signet Office, the Privy Seal Office, the Great Seal Office; to which, indeed, may be added a fourth, the COMPTROLLER OF EXCHEQUER'S REGISTER, where also was recorded every instrument of the above description, to enable that officer to account to the Crown for the feu-duties. These four old registers, or records, are all completed from periods long anterior to the year 1639, down to the present day, with the exception of a _hiatus_ of twelve leaves at the commencement of the fifty-seventh volume of the Great Seal Record; but the contents of these twelve leaves were clearly ascertainable from the indexes of other records. "It is the boast of this country," said Lord Meadowbank, in summing up, to the jury,[19] "and always has been, that its registers have been kept with a regularity unknown elsewhere." [19] Swinton, p.309.