It was natural and fitting that, the legend on her seal being at variance with her style, the Empress should embrace the opportunity afforded, by the making of a wholly new seal, to bring the two into harmony. The next point is the adoption of the form "Angliæ," not "Anglorum." This, at first sight, seemed suspicious. For though the abbreviation found in charters ("Angl'") might stand for "Anglorum" or for "Angliæ," the legend on the seal of Stephen, as on that of Henry I., contains the form "Anglorum;" and Matilda styled herself in her charters "Anglorum" (not "Anglie) Domina." But the remarkable fact that both the queens of Henry I. bore on their seals the legend "Sigillum ... Reginæ Ang_lie_" led me to the conclusion that, so far from impugning, this form actually confirmed the genuineness of the alleged legend. It will doubtless be asked why this seal should have been affixed, so far as we know, to this charter alone. But it is precisely this that gives it so great an interest. For this is the only known instance of an original charter, still surviving, belonging to the brief but eventful period of the Empress's stay at Westminster on the eve of her intended coronation.[877] It may safely be presumed that a Great Seal was made in readiness for this event, and that its legend would necessarily include the style of "Queen of England." The Empress, in at least two of her charters, had already, though irregularly, assumed this style,[878] and was clearly eager to adopt it. As to her retention of her foreign style on her seal as an English sovereign, it might be suggested that she clung to the loftiest style of all[879] from that haughty pride which was to prove fatal to her claims; but it is more likely that she found it needful to distinguish thus her style from that of her rival's queen. For by a singular coincidence, they would both have had, in the ordinary course, upon their seals precisely the same legend, viz. "Mathildis dei gratia Regina Anglie."[880] We may then, I think, thus account for the presence of this seal at Westminster, and for its use, with characteristic eagerness, by the Empress on this occasion. We may also no less satisfactorily account for the fact that it was never used again. For this, indeed, the events that followed the fall of the Empress from her high estate, and the virtual collapse of her hopes, may be held sufficiently to account. But it is quite possible that in the headlong flight of the Empress and her followers from Westminster, the Great Seal may have fallen, with the rest of her abandoned treasure, into the hands of her triumphant foes. [872] _Journ. Brit. Arch. Ass._, xxxi. 381. [873] This transcript was taken before the fire in which the charter was so badly injured. [874] Bryce's _Holy Roman Empire_. [875] P. 317 (3rd edition).