[154] The Seal was stolen from Lord Thurlow by burglars in 1784, and the offer of a reward of £200 failed to retrieve it. When Lord Chancellor Eldon's house at Encombe caught fire in 1812, he buried the Seal for safety's sake in the garden, and then forgot where he had buried it. His family spent most of the next day digging for it before it was finally recovered. Eldon seems to have taken the fire very easily. "It really was a very pretty sight," he wrote, "for all the maids turned out of their beds, and formed a line from the water to the fire-engine, handing the buckets; they looked very pretty, _all in their shifts_." Campbell's "Lives of the Chancellors," vol. vii. p. 300. The post of Lord Keeper has been held by statesmen, courtiers, and divines, and the duties of the office have even been undertaken on two occasions by women. Queen Eleanor, the first Lady Keeper, was also the most unpopular. While her husband was abroad in 1253, and the Great Seal was in her custody, she made use of her delegated power to lay a heavy tax on all vessels bearing cargo to London, and showered gifts of English land and places upon her foreign relatives. She thus succeeded in arousing the hatred of the London mob, who expressed their dislike in a material fashion by pelting her with mud. To avoid the fury of the populace Queen Eleanor fled abroad, and only returned to England to take refuge in a convent.[155] The other Lady Keeper, Queen Isabella, who held the Great Seal in 1321, had no actual commission, and was not entrusted with any judicial power. But she kept the Seal in a casket, and delivered it each day as it was required to the Master of the Rolls, and may therefore claim to be included in the list of Keepers. [155] Queen Eleanor was a remarkable woman. At the age of thirteen she was the author of a heroic poem, and in the following year became a wife. Piers of Langtoft describes her as "The fayrest Maye in lyfe, Her name Elinore of gentle nurture, Beyond the sea there was no such creature."