Seal of the President of the United States be on a swivel so that it could face the olive branches or the arrows, as the occasion might demand". Also furthering this misconception was an episode of "The West Wing" entitled "What Kind of Day Has It Been?", aired in 2000. Character Admiral Fitzwallace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, observed that the presidential seal in the center of the Oval Office carpet contained a shield bearing a bald eagle clutching the olive branch in its right talons and arrows in its left. The eagle's head was turned toward the olive branch. Fitzwallace mentioned that in times of
Great Seal of the Realm held the seal only until 1656, when Cromwell nominated William Steele, Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer in England, Lord Chancellor of Ireland. In 1688, while attempting to flee to France, James II destroyed his Great Seal, apparently by throwing it into the River Thames in the hope that the machinery of government would cease to function. James's successors, William III and Mary II, used the same seal matrix in their new Great Seal. This may have been a deliberate choice, in order to imply the continuity of government. A new obverse was created, but the reverse was crudely