THE LORD HIGH STEWARD OF ENGLAND.

THE first Great Officer of the Crown was formerly the Lord Steward of England, or Viceroy, for so the word signifies in the Saxon; and who is styled in Latin, Magnus Angliæ Seneschallus.

This honourable office is of great antiquity, having been established prior to the reign of Edward the Confessor. In the time of William the Conqueror, William Fitz Eustace was Steward of England.

This great office, which was anciently next in authority to that of the Sovereign, was formerly one of inheritance. By a record produced by Sir Edward Coke, it would appear to have been annexed to the Earldom of Leicester," Seneschalcia Angliæ pertinet ad Comitivam de Leicester, et pertinuit ab antiquo." While other records again prove it to have belonged to the Barony of Hinckley, and Coke himself states that in the reigns of William Rufus and Henry I, Hugh Grantsemenel, Baron of Hinckley, held that Barony by the said office.

This apparent difference, however, is easily explained. Hinckley was part of the possessions of the Earl of Leicester; for Robert Bellamont, Earl of Leicester, in the reign of Henry II, married with Petronil, daughter and heir of the said Hugh Grantsemenel, Baron of Hinckley, and Lord Steward of England, and the office accordingly continued to be filled by the Earls of Leicester, until the attainder of the celebrated Simon de Montford, in the reign of Henry III; who, in the fifteenth year of his reign, created Edmond, his second son, Earl of Leicester, Baron of Hinckley, and High Steward of England.

These titles were regularly enjoyed by his successors down to Henry of Bolingbroke, son and heir of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, who was the last that had any estate of inheritance in

the office of the Steward of England; * the office having merged in the Crown upon his accession to the throne.

The power of this office being so great as to be considered unfit to be intrusted to any below the Sovereign, it has never been granted but by a Commission pro hâc vice, for the despatch of some special business, as the arraignment of a nobleman for treason, &c., which business being ended, the Commission expires with it. † And the Commission is moreover "limited and appointed," as in the case of a Lord of Parliament being indicted of treason or felony; when the grant of this office, under the Great Seal of England, is to a Lord of Parliament, reciting the indictment, and restraining him to proceed only upon such indictment.

And it was formerly usual at every coronation to issue a Commission to some nobleman, constituting him pro hâc vice High Steward of England, who used by virtue of his office to sit judicially in the White Hall of the King's Palace at Westminster, near the chapel, to receive the petitions of the Officers of State, and of such of the nobility and gentry as were by the tenure of their respective estates bound to perform services of different kinds at the Coronations of the Kings and Queens of England. These petitions or claims he had the power to examine, allowing

*Summus Angliæ Seneschallus: or a Survey of the Lord High Steward of England, &c. 4to. London. 1680. This pamphlet, written. during the imprisonment of Lord Stafford and the other Catholic Peers, in the Tower, in the year 1679 and 1680, as an answer to fourteen queries on various points of law connected with the trial of Peers, submitted by them to the author, is ascribed to Sir Edmund Saunders, afterwards Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, by a contributor to the "Gentleman's Magazine," for March 1834, of a very interesting paper on this subject.

+ Thus at Elizabeth's coronation, Henry Earl of Arundel, was on the 12th January 1559, created High Steward, to hold that office during the whole of the 15th day of January, then instant, "from the rising of the sun on the same day, to the setting thereof," being the day of the Queen's coronation.-Rymer's "Foedera," xv. 495.

such as were supported by documents and precedents, and rejecting such as were not satisfactorily established; hence this tribunal was called the COURT OF CLAIMS. Of late years, however, it has been usual to issue a Commission, constituting certain Members of the Privy Council a Court of Claims, empowered to do all such acts with regard to this Court, as the High Steward of England had been used to do in former times.

The Lord High Steward, however, still performs on these occasions a part of the service belonging to his office, that of walking next before the Sovereign in the procession to the church, bearing the crown of St. Edward. This duty was performed at the coronation of George IV. by the Marquess of Anglesea; and at that of his late Majesty by the Duke of Hamilton.

It has been already observed, that whenever it unfortunately happens that a Grand Jury finds a true bill against a Peer of the Realm for treason or felony, a Commission is issued constituting a Lord High Steward, with authority to try the accused. The first High Steward created for this purpose, was Edward, Earl of Devon, for the trial of John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon, in the reign of Henry IV.

It has been generally believed, that this nobleman was put to death by the tenants of the Duke of Gloucester, in revenge of the murder of their Lord. It appears, however, from the following passage, founded upon the excellent authority of the Year Book, 1 Henry IV, that the Earl underwent a trial before a legal and competent tribunal.*

*This account is corroborated by some entries in Rymer; from which it appears that on the 5th January 1400, warrants were directed to the Sheriffs to arrest Thomas, Earl of Kent, and John, Earl of Huntingdon, and that on the 10th of the same month, a warrant was granted to the Constable of the Tower, to receive the body of the Earl of Huntingdon; and further, that in a proclamation of the 25th February he is styled the late Earl of Huntingdon,' from which we may infer that he had been executed. See Gentleman's Magazine' loco citato, which

"The Earl of Huntingdon was indicted of high treason in London, by a Commission before the Mayor and Justices, for that he, with other persons, agreed to go a mumming (which the French call masquerades,) on the night of Epiphany, in which they agreed to kill the King, then at Windsor. And after the King granted a Commission to the Earl of Devon, reciting that whereas, John, Earl of Huntingdon, was indicted of high treason, and that he would that right should be done; and because the office of the Steward of England is now void, he granted it to the said Earl of Devon, to do justice to the said Earl of Huntingdon, commanding by the same Commission all the Lords to be attendant upon him; and precept was likewise given by the same, to the Constable of the Tower to be attendant on him, and to bring the prisoner, viz. the Earl of Huntingdon, before the said Earl of Devon, on the day appointed. Whereupon the Earl of Devon the same day sat in Westminster Hall, under a cloth of estate, by himself, and the Earl of Westmoreland and other Earls and Barons, sat a considerable distance, and all the Justices and Barons of the Exchequer sat round a table, and after three O Yes's made, and the Commission read, the Justices delivered the indictment to the Lord Steward, which was delivered to the Clerk of the Crown, who read it to the said Earl of Huntingdon, which he confessed, whereupon Hill, the King's Serjeant, prayed judgment, which the Lord Steward (after he had rehearsed the whole matter) pronounced in this manner : That the Earl of Huntingdon should be taken back to the Tower of London, and from thence be drawn to the gallows, and there hanged; and being yet alive, cut down, and his entrails drawn out of his body, and burnt, and that he should be beheaded and quartered, et sic Deus propitiatur animæ suæ !'

"The Justices then said, that if the Earl of Huntingdon had de

contains also an account of the proceedings on the arraignment of the Duke of Buckingham, in the reign of Henry VIII, from the Lansdown MSS.

nied the treason, the Lord Steward should have demanded of every Lord in open court, what they thought in their consciences, beginning with the puisne Lord; and if the greater number said guilty, then the judgment to be given as above."

It has been the practice of late years to appoint the Lord Chancellor High Steward on these occasions; when he is attended from his house to the House of Lords, by the Judges and Officers at Arms, in great state; where the Peers being assembled, his Commission is read, and a white rod, his emblem of office, is put into his hand with great ceremony; and then His Grace, for so he is then styled, takes the seat allotted for him as Lord High Steward, and proceeds to the trial of the person or persons arraigned before him.

When the trial is over, his Grace breaks the rod, which ends his Commission.*

Among the more recent instances of the issuing of such a commission, may be mentioned those so vividly described by Walpole in his inimitable correspondence. When Lord Ferrers was tried, Lord Keeper Henley was appointed Lord High Steward, while at the trial of the rebel Lords in 1746, Philip, Lord Hardwicke, the Chancellor, was installed in that office; neither of whom seem to have satisfied Walpole's ideas as to the manner in which its duties ought to be executed. At the trial of Lord Byron in 1765, the

* At the conclusion of the trial of Robert, Earl of Kingston, in 1798, for the murder of Colonel Fitzgerald, after he had been pronounced "Not Guilty," and discharged upon payment of fees, "The Lord High Steward then holding up the White Rod in his hands, said, The Commission of the Lord High Steward stands dissolved,' and immediately broke the rod." Eur. Mag.' vol. xxxIII. p. 436.

t "The Chancellor was Lord High Steward; but though a most comely personage, with a fine voice, his behaviour was mean, curiously searching for occasion to bow to the Minister that is no Peer (Henry Pelham), and consequently applying to the other Ministers in a manner for their orders; and not even ready at the ceremonial. To the prisoners he was