LORD HIGH STEWARD. The lord high steward of Eng land, who must not be confused with the lord steward (q.v.), ranks as the first of the great officers of State. Appointments to this office are now made only for special occasions, such as the coronation of a sovereign or the trial of a peer by his peers. The history of the office is noteworthy. The household of the Norman and Angevin kings of England included certain domestics and officials styled dapifers, seneschals or stewards (the prototypes of the lord steward). At coronations, however, and great festivals it became the custom in England and elsewhere to appoint mag nates of the first rank to discharge for the occasion these domestic functions. In accordance with this custom Henry II. appointed both Robert earl of Leicester, and Hugh Bigod, earl of Norfolk, to be his honorary hereditary stewards; and at the Christmas festival of 1186 the successors in title of these two earls are described as serving the king at the royal banqueting table. Subsequently the earls of Leicester bought out the rights of the earls of Norfolk for ten knights' fees.
The last of these earls of Leicester to inherit the hereditary stewardship was Simon V. de Montfort, upon whose death his forfeited estates were conferred on his son Edmund of Lancaster, who also obtained a grant of the stewardship, but only for life. Edmund was succeeded by Thomas, earl of Lancaster, who, upon his execution for treason, was succeeded in the earldom by his brother Henry. The subsequent earls and dukes of Lancaster were all recognized as stewards of England, the office apparently being treated as annexed to the earldom, or honour, of Leicester. Strictly speaking, none of the Lancasters after Thomas had any clear title either by grant or otherwise; such title as they had merged in the Crown when Henry IV. usurped the throne. Meanwhile the stewardship had increased in importance. On the accession of Edward III., Henry, earl of Lancaster, as president of the council, had superintended the coronation of the infant king; John of Gaunt did the same for the infant Richard II., and, as part of the duties involved, sat in the White Hall of Westminster to hear and determine the claims to perform corona tion services. The claims were made by petition, and included, amongst others, the claim of Thomas of Woodstock to act as constable, the rival claims of John Dymock and Baldwin de Fre vile to act as champion, and the claim of the barons of the cinque ports to carry a canopy over the king. Minutes of these proceedings, in which the duke is stated to have sat "as steward of England," were enrolled by his order. This is the origin of what is now called the court of claims. The precedent of Richard II. has been followed on all subsequent occasions, except that in modern times it has been the practice to appoint commissioners instead of a steward to superintend this court. In 1397 John of Gaunt created a notable precedent in support of the steward's claim to be supreme judge in parliament by presiding at the trial of the earl of Arundel and others.
When Henry IV. came to the throne he appointed his young son Thomas, afterwards duke of Clarence, to the office of steward. Clarence held the office until his death. He himself never acted as judge in parliament ; but in 1415 he was ap pointed to preside at the judgment of peers delivered in South ampton against Richard, earl of Cambridge, and Lord Scrope of Masham, who had been previously tried by commissioners of oyer and terminer. No permanent steward was ever again created; but a steward was always appointed for coronations to perform the various ceremonial services associated with the office, and, until the court of claims was entrusted to commissioners, to preside over that court. Also, in the 15th century, it gradually became the custom to appoint a steward pro hac vice to preside at the trial, or at the proceedings upon the attainder, of a peer in parliament ; and later, to preside over a court, called the court of the lord high steward, for the trial of peers when parliament was not sitting. To assist in establishing the latter court a precedent of 1400 appears to have been deliberately forged. This precedent is reported in the printed Year-Book of 1400, first published in 1553 ; it describes the trial of "the earl of H" for participation in the rebellion of that year, and gives details of procedure. John Holand, earl of Huntingdon, is undoubtedly the earl indicated, but the evidence is conclusive that he was murdered in Essex without any trial. The court of the lord high steward seems to have been first definitely instituted in 1499 for the trial of Edward Plantagenet, earl of Warwick; only two years earlier Lord Audley had been condemned by the court of chivalry, a very different and unpopular tribunal. The Warwick trial was most carefully schemed : the procedure, fundamentally dissimilar to that adopted in 1415, follows exactly the forged precedent; but the constitution of the court was plainly derived from the Southampton case. The record of the trial was consigned to a new repository (commonly but wrongly called the Bags de Secretis), which thenceforth became the regular place of custody for important state trials. Latterly, and possibly from its in ception, this repository consisted of a closet with three locks, of which the keys were entrusted, one to the chief justice of Eng land, another to the attorney-general and the third to the master of the Crown office, or coroner. Notwithstanding the irregular origin of the steward's court, for which Henry VII. must be held responsible, the validity of its jurisdiction cannot be questioned. The Warwick proceedings were confirmed by act of parliament, and ever since this court has been fully recognized as part of the English constitution.