The obverse depicts the familiar Longespée shield of arms on a plain ground, with the legend: + SIGILLVM. WILLELMI. LVNGESPEIE (reconstructed from two incomplete specimens); the counterseal is William’s secretum, displaying a sword with part of its baldric pointing vertically downwards and intruding at its point into the legend, the latter reading: + SECRETVM. WILLELM(I). LV(N) GGESPE. Two nearly complete examples in green wax are in the British Library and in the Berkshire Record Office, and among other survivors a broken specimen in red wax is in The National Archives.²⁶

Stephen Longespée, a younger brother, also had a circular seal of similar dimensions, employing the same arms and symbols, but in a different combination (Fig. 10.6). The obverse has the family’s heraldic shield, differenced with a label of four points for a younger son, flanked by two swords pointing downwards at an angle, with the legend: + SIGILLVM. STEPHA[NI.] [LVNGGES]SPE. The counterseal is Stephen’s secretum, which is of a totally different design, depicting the heads of five lioncels facing the viewer, like five lioncel masks, in a cross formation, with the legend: + SECRETVM STEPHANI. LVNGESPE. Why he should have chosen five lioncel faces rather than six (to match the family arms) is unclear, but certainly, as we shall see, his widow sported six lioncel faces on her seal.²⁷ The youngest brother, Nicholas, who eventually went into the church and rose to become bishop of Salisbury in 1292, displayed pride in his family on his episcopal seal of dignity, of which a very damaged specimen survives on his will in the Salisbury Cathedral archives (the only example widely known until recently) and, happily, a largely complete one on a notarial instrument in the records of Merton College, Oxford.²⁸ It is a typical, if very fine, episcopal seal of the period, pointed-oval or vesica-shaped, portraying the bishop frontal in full pontificals, his right hand raised in benediction, his left holding a pastoral staff, and standing beneath a trefoiled canopy of Early English design. The canopy apparently rests on side shafts, although on closer inspection these are seen to be in reality two long swords pointing vertically upwards (a nice conceit), and flanking them in the field two shields of the Longespée arms, again differenced with a label of four points to denote a younger son (Fig. 10.7).