As the second year of little Henry’s reign drew to a close, his guardians seem to have felt it time to make arrangements for securing that the validity of acts done and orders issued in his name should no longer be dependent on any individual, even though that individual were the Governor of King and Kingdom or the Legate. It is probable that a change in the legation was known to be impending,[505] and also that the physical strength of the aged Marshal was beginning to give way under the strain of his great labours and responsibilities, when the making of a new royal seal was entrusted to a goldsmith named Walter “of the Hithe.” The seal was of silver, of the weight of five marks.[506] It was first used on 3rd or 4th November, 1218, to authenticate an ordinance specially designed to guard against a possible misuse of it during the King’s minority. Letters patent were issued warning all men that no grant in perpetuity was to be sealed with it till the King’s coming of age, and that any such grant found thus sealed should be null and void.[507] It was probably on the same occasion that the Bishop of Winchester, the Chancellor, the Justiciar, and “the King’s common council” made oath in the Legate’s presence that they would “keep and hold the King in seisin of all the lands which were in the hand of his father, King John, on the day when war was first begun between him and his barons of England, and that nothing should be done in the way of granting or alienating any land so that it should be ceded to any man in perpetuity so long as the King was under age.”[508] The letter patent concerning the use of the seal was attested by the Legate, the Archbishops Stephen of Canterbury--who had returned from Rome in May[509]--and Walter of York, the Justiciar, and a number of other prelates and nobles.[510] Its attestation must have been almost the last of Gualo’s public acts in England. His work there was done, and well done; he wished to resign his office; and the Pope, who had other work for him elsewhere, had accepted his resignation. In the last week of November he set out on his homeward journey.[511] A few days later a new Legate came to take his place.[512] [Sidenote: 1219]