Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/483

 STATE OFFICERS 459 lord high steward to sit judicially in the court of claims to hear and determine all claims to render services of grand serjeanty to the king or queen at his or her coronation. Since the accession of the house of Tudor, however, this function has generally been discharged by a specially appointed commission, or a committee of the privy council. According to the tradition once current among lawyers and antiquaries, the steward of England was, under the Norman aucl Angevin kings, the second personage in the realm, the viceroy in the absence and the chief minister in the presence of the sovereign. Coke says, on the more than doubtful authority of an ancient manuscript, that his office was to .superintend under the king and next after the king the whole kingdom and all the ministers of the law within the kingdom in time of both peace and war. But of this there is no satisfactory evidence. It is not improbable that the .steward of England may for a short period after the Con- quest have occupied a position analogous to that of the Saxon heah-gerefa or that of the Norman seneschal, or of the two in combination. But, as Stubbs points out, the chief minister and occasional viceroy, either alone or with others, of the Conqueror and his earlier successors was the person to whom the historians and the later constitutional writers give the name of justiciarius with or without the prefix " summus " or " capitalis." He adds that most likely the Norman seneschalship was the origin of the English j usticiarship, that under Henry II. the seneschal of Nor- mandy receives the name of justiciar, and that it is only in the same reign that the office in England acquires the exclusive right to the definite name of " summus " or " capitalis justitiarius " or " justitiarius totius Anglia?." But whatever may have been his original condition the .steward had been by that time at the latest eclipsed in his most important functions by the justiciar, and he makes, as Stubbs observes, in his official capacity no great figure in English history. By the reign of Henry II. at any rate all connexion between the stewardship and the justiciar- ship had come to an end ; and, while the second retained its authority unimpaired until its extinction, the first be- came a grand serjeanty, primarily annexed to the barony of Hinckley, it is said, and afterwards to the earldom of Leicester. On the attainder of Simon de Montfort the earldom and stewardship were forfeited, and both were granted by Edward I. to his brother Edmund Plantagenet, earl of Lancaster, from whom they descended to the daughter and eventual heiress of Henry Plantagenet, duke of Lan- caster. She was the first wife of John of Gaunt and the mother of Henry IV. On the accession of her son to the throne they became merged in the crown, from which period the stewardship has been revived only hac vice from time to time as occasion required. It is indeed to John of Gaunt that the pre-eminent position accorded to the office since the end of the 1 4th century is really due. It emerged from the comparative obscurity in which it had rested for nearly three hundred years as soon as he became the tenant of it by courtesy in right of his deceased wife. As far as any records show to the contrary he was the first steward of England who took part in the coronation of a king or queen, and he was certainly the first steward of England who sat in the court of claims or who presided at a trial by the House of Lords. It seems to have been by him also that the precedence of the stewardship before all the other great offices of state was secured, a restoration or aug- mentation of rank which is the more remarkable in that the steward of Scotland gave place to the chamberlain and the seneschal of Ireland gave place to the constable of the two kingdoms respectively. John of Gaunt may be regarded, in fact, as the creator of the lord high stewardship and all its privileges and prerogatives as they have existed from his days to our own. The lord great chamberlain of England ranks as the Lord sixth great officer of state. Whenever the sovereign S 1-e at attends the palace of Westminster the keys are delivered Camber- to him, and he is for the time in command of the building. At the opening or closing of the session of parliament by the sovereign in person he disposes of the sword of state to be carried by any peer he may select, and walks him- self in the procession on the right of the sword of state, a little before it and next to the sovereign. He assists at the introduction of all peers into the House of Lords on their creation, and at the homage of all bishops after their consecration. At a coronation he receives the regalia from the dean and chapter of Westminster, and distributes them to the personages who are to bear them in the cere- mony. On that day it is his duty to carry the sovereign his shirt and wearing apparel before he rises and to serve him with water to wash his hands before and after dinner. The chamberlain was originally a financial officer ; his work, Stubbs says, was rather that of auditor or accountant than that of treasurer ; he held a more definite position in the household than most of the other great officers, " and in the judicial work of the country he was only less im- portant than the justiciar." The office was hereditary in the Veres, earls of Oxford, from the reign of Henry I. to the reign of Charles I., when it passed through an heiress to the Berties, Lords Willoughby de Eresby, and after- wards earls of Liudsey and dukes of Ancaster, and from the Berties it was transmitted through coheiresses to the present inheritors of the dignity. The Stuarts, dukes of Lennox, were hereditary great chamberlains of Scotland in the IGth and 17th centuries. The office on their ex- tinction was granted by Charles II. to James, duke of Mxmrnouth and Buccleuch, on whose attainder it passed to Charles, duke of Richmond and Lennox, by whom it was surrendered to the crown in 1703. The lord high constable of England ranks as the seventh Lord of the great officers of state. His office is called out of ] "gb con - abeyance for coronations alone, when it is his duty to e- assist in the reception of the regalia from the dean and chapter of Westminster, and during the coronation ban- quet to ride into Westminster Hall on the right hand of the champion. The constable was originally the com- mander of the royal armies and the master of the horse. He was also one of the judges of the court of chivalry or court of honour. The constableship was granted as a grand serjeanty with the earldom of Hereford by the empress Maud to Milo of Gloucester, and was carried by his heiress to the Bohuns, earls of Hereford and Essex. Through a coheiress of the Bohuns it descended to the Staffords, dukes of Buckingham ; and on the attainder of Edward Stafford, third duke of Buckingham, in the reign of Henry VIII. it became merged in the crown. The Lacys and Verduns were hereditary constables of Ireland from the 12th to the 14th century; and the Hays, earls of Erroll, have been hereditary constables of Scotland from early in the 14th century until the present time. The earl marshal of England ranks as the eighth of the Earl great officers of state. He is the head of the college of arms, and has the appointment of the kings-of-arms, her- alds, and pursuivants at his discretion. He attends the sovereign in opening and closing the session of parliament, walking opposite to the lord great chamberlain on his or her right hand. It is his duty to make arrangements for the order of all state processions and ceremonials, espe- cially for coronations and royal marriages and funerals. Like the lord high constable he rides into Westminster Hall with the champion after a coronation, taking his place on the left hand, and with the lord great chamberlain he assists at the introduction of all newly-created peers into the House of Lords. The marshal appears in the feudal