There are close similarities between the lion of the Rouen seal and another such beast, used in the 1140s to stamp the coins of Robert earl of Gloucester (d. 1147), illegitimate brother of the empress Matilda and hence uncle to the future Henry II. Robert of Gloucester’s lion is a far less impressive creature than that of the Rouen seal. It nonetheless shares with the Rouen lion its mane, curved tale and exaggeratedly large mouth or maw.¹¹⁵ William of Gloucester (d. 1183) not only continued minting his father, earl Robert’s coinage, but employed a recut version of Robert’s seal showing a lion passant, facing to the right, with a large lily stem (possibly a rod of Jesse) behind.¹¹⁶ In these circumstances, and given that earls Robert and William were the son and grandson of King Henry I, it is tempting to suggest a derivation of the English royal lion not from Geoffrey Plantagenet but from his father-in-law, Henry I, perhaps conferred upon Geoffrey at the time of his marriage to the King’s daughter in 1127.¹¹⁷ If so, then the deliberate adoption of his grandfather’s heraldic symbolism would supply yet further proof of that tendency, long recognised, for Henry II to cloak himself in the traditions and legitimacy bestowed on him by direct descent from Henry I.

We have already seen that the appearance of serpents on the signet seals of royal chancellors may reveal imitation of the King’s own privy seal. With the symbol of the lion, there seems to have been a similar tendency for courtiers to adopt what were originally royal insignia. Examples from Henry II’s reign are rare, but by c. 1200, we find Geoffrey fitz Peter, the future earl of Essex and justiciar, and Bricius the Chamberlain, King John’s seneschal of Anjou, both employing lions on their seals, either as heraldic devices, or in the case of Bricius the Chamberlain as what appears to have been a nascent seal of office (Fig. 2.12).¹¹⁸ Bernard de St-Valery, son of Reginald (d. c. 1166) and a regular attender at Henry II’s court, sealed a charter of 1181 with an equestrian seal showing him carrying a shield charged with two lions passant, with a further two lions passant used as counterseal.¹¹⁹ Beasts that appear earlier, on the seals of Henry II’s courtiers Richard de Canville and Ralph fitz Stephen may or may not represent lions.¹²⁰ Conversely, seals such as that of William l’Archévêque, lord of Parthenay, that show rivals of the Plantagenet kings struggling with or taming lions, may contain a message not just of brute strength but of political intent.¹²¹