Elizabeth. He was unfortunately inveigled into conspiracy by Mary, queen of Scots, and was beheaded in 1572. In the year 1621 the dignity was again restored to the Howard family, in which it has since continued without interruption.

According to the usages said to have been claimed in the reign of King Henry II. by Gilbert, earl of Strigul or Pembroke, the marshal in right of his office standing next to the king, was entitled to bear in his hand the royal crown, to assist in placing it on the king's head, and, holding it by the fleur de lis fixed in front, to sustain it during the remainder of the solemnity. These claims were never renewed by the subsequent earls marshal.

In Edmondson's Heraldry we find the following account of the duties to be performed by the earl marshal. "On the coronation day, and all high festivals, it was incumbent on the marshal to appease and prevent all tumults, noise, and disturbance in the king's presence; to apprehend and keep in safe custody all offenders against the king's peace; to bring them before the high steward, and to take care that justice was done to all persons whatsoever. He was also to keep the doors of the great hall, and of all other rooms within the royal palace, excepting that of the king's bedchamber, and in all things to execute the office of a high usher. For these services he received as his fees the horse and the palfrey on which the king and the queen rode to the place of coronation, together with their bridles, saddles, and caparisons; the cloth spread on the table whereat the king dined; the cloth of estate which hung behind him at dinner; the chines of all cranes and swans served up, and sundry other fees belonging to his high office."

In modern times the earl marshal arranges the order of procession, the precedency of the peers, and the places of the principal officers; he walks next to the

high steward, bearing his baton of office, and, together with the lord high constable, introduces the champion at the banquet.

The LORD CHAMBERLAIN OF GREAT BRITAIN, has a right to livery and lodging in the royal court, and there

Earl Marshai's Staff.

are certain fees due to him from each archbishop or bishop, when they do their homage to the sovereign, and from all peers at their creation, or performing their homage. On the morning of the coronation it is his duty to bring the sovereign's principal articles of dress, upon which he claims the bed and all the furniture of the chamber for his fee. He also claims forty ells of crimson velvet for his own robes. During the coronation, the lord chamberlain has charge of the coif, linen, and gloves, to be used by the sovereign, the gold to be offered at the altar, and the royal robes; he is also to serve the sovereign with water for washing the hands before and after dinner, and to have the basin and towel for his pains. As governor of the palace he superintends the preparations in Westminster Hall for the coronation banquet, and he has the nomination of the peer who is to carry the sword of state. Henry I. granted the hereditary enjoyment of this office to the family of the De Veres, earls of Oxford, but it is now attached to the ancient barony of Willoughby d'Eresby.

The lord chamberlain of Scotland had high judicial functions, and his office was hereditary in the Lennox family; it was surrendered to the crown by the duke of Lennox in 1703.

The archbishop of Canterbury has the undisputed right of performing the ceremony of the coronation, and he receives as his fee the purple velvet chair, cushion, and footstool, whereon he sits during the ceremony.

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CHAPTER V.

SERVICES PERFORMED AT THE CORONATION BY TENURE OF GRAND SERJEANTRY.

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COURT OF CLAIMS.

THE

TENURE by grand serjeantry," says Littleton, "is where a man holds his lands or tenements of the sovereign by such services as he ought to do in his own person, as to carry the banner of the king, or his lance, or to lead his army, or to be his marshal, or to carry his sword before him at the coronation, or to be his sewer at his coronation, or his carver, or his butler, &c." In some curious instances we find that the duties of this tenure were allowed to be performed by deputy. Lord Coke informs us that at the coronation of King Richard II., a citizen of London who held by grand serjeantry, had a deputy appointed for him because he was not of sufficient quality. A knight, it appears, was the lowest in rank who could do any personal service to the sovereign on such occasions; for at the same coronation a gentleman of honourable birth was compelled to take the order of knighthood before he was admitted to perform the conditions of his tenure. A female may appoint a deputy, but the sovereign claims the privilege of nominating the substitute for a person of tender years.

The petitions or claims generally assert a right of performing certain services, apparently menial, as the condition by which manors and estates are held. Such tenures are very common in feudal history, but they appear to have been derived from the Byzantine empire, where the officers of the palace usurped the chief authority of the state. In England, all lands are supposed to be held either mediately or immediately from

the king; and some of the conditions on which manors were granted, will show that the tenures of grand serjeantry to which our attention must be more particularly directed, are far from being without a parallel. We shall select a few of the most singular from Blount's Fragmenta Antiquitatis.

In the 19th of Henry III. Walter Gately held the manor of Westcourt in Bedington, Surrey, on the condition of yielding yearly to the king one cross-bow, value twelve pence. In the 14th of Edward III. three persons held thirty acres of land at Carleton in Norfolk, by the service of bringing the king, should he be in England, twenty-four pastres of herrings on the first coming-in of the fish. In the 34th of the same king, a man held a manor in Kent, for providing a man to lead three greyhounds whenever the king should go into Gascony, so long as a pair of shoes, valued at four pence, should last. In the 1st of Edward II., Peter Spileman held a manor on condition of finding straw for the king's bed, and hay for his horse.

We find in the age of the Plantagenets many examples of such tenures. One held a manor by paying two white capons annually; another by carrying the king's standard whenever he happens to be in the county of Sussex; another by being marshal or director of the laundresses, female suttlers, and other women, who may accompany the king's army: the lord of the manor of Elston in Nottinghamshire pays yearly a rent of one pound of cummin seed, two pair of gloves, and a good steel needle "warranted not to cut in the eye;" another manor is held on condition of repairing the iron of the royal ploughs and harrows; and in the 13th year of Edward I. we find the manor of Hohenorton in Warwickshire granted to Ela, countess of Warwick, on condition of her carving for the king at his birth-day feast, and taking as her fee the knife which he uses at table.

We e come now to the services specially rendered on the coronation; and of these the first is that of the hereditary GRAND ALMONER of England. An almoner, as his name denotes, is an officer appointed to distribute alms to the poor, and such a one was anciently attached to all monasteries; for by the ancient canons all monasteries were obliged to spend one-tenth of their income in charity. By another ancient canon every bishop was obliged to keep an almoner, and such an officer was attached to most European courts. Before the Revolution, the grand almoner of France was the highest ecclesiastical dignitary in the kingdom. To him belonged the superintendency of all hospitals and houses of lepers. The king received the sacrament from his hand, and he said mass before him in all grand ceremonies and solemnities.

The duty of the English grand almoner is to distribute the alms collected in a silver dish on the day of coronation, and also to divide among certain poor persons the blue cloth on which the sovereign walks from the throne in Westminster Hall to the door of the Abbey. He receives as his fee the silver dish in which the alms are collected, and also the napkin by which it is covered. John, earl of Exeter, who held the manor of Bedford at the coronation of Charles II., claimed in addition a tun of good wine, not for distribution, but for his own proper use, which was disallowed.

From the earliest ages of England, the CHIEF BUTLER has been considered one of the principal officers in attendance at the coronation feast. We learn from the Holy Scriptures that the office of chief butler was one of great importance and dignity at the court of the Pharaohs; for Joseph requested the chief butler, who was his companion in the prison, to procure his liberation, when the butler should be restored to his former place; and it was actually by his interference that