From the Gallery: Upper Canada’s Mace Comes Home

With Fort York hosting the Magna Carta and its sylvan sister, the Charter of the Forest, this fall we are reminded of the occasion 4 July 1934, when the mace of Upper Canada was returned here as a gesture of goodwill on the initiative of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It had been taken from the House of Assembly by US soldiers in 1813 following the Battle of York. An image in the Gallery on The Friends’ website shows the handing-over ceremony at Fort York, where Rear Admiral William D. Leahy of the US Navy presented the mace to His Honour Lt. Col. H.A. Bruce, lieutenant-governor of Ontario.

Just as the Great Charter began the process of defining the limits of royal powers, the mace has long had a place in our Parliaments to remind legislators that they enact laws under the authority of the Speaker for assent by the sovereign or sovereign’s representative before taking effect. Upper Canada’s first mace was made on Lt.-Gov. Simcoe’s orders, probably in 1792 in Niagara, certainly by an unknown craftsman. It is usually on display at Queen’s Park but saw service for a short time again in 2009 when the current mace was being refurbished.