[1] The great seal, which exists in duplicate for Irish use, is the
great seal of the United Kingdom.
[2] Except the lord chief justice, who is appointed on the nomination
of the prime minister.
LORD HIGH CONSTABLE, in England, the seventh of the great officers of
state. His office is now called out of abeyance for coronations alone.
The constable was originally the commander of the royal armies and the
master of the horse. He was also, in conjunction with the earl marshal,
president of the court of chivalry or court of honour. In feudal times
martial law was administered in the court of the lord high constable.
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.
LORD HIGH STEWARD. The Lord High Steward of England, who must not be
confused with the Lord Steward, 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 persons of
secondary rank, styled dapifers, seneschals or stewards (the prototypes
of the lord steward), who were entrusted with domestic and state duties;
the former duties were those of purveyors and sewers to the king, the
latter were undefined. At coronations, however, and great festivals it
became the custom in England and elsewhere to appoint magnates of the
first rank to discharge for the occasion the domestic functions of the
ordinary officials. In accordance with this custom Henry II. appointed
both Robert II., 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, with William, earl of
Arundel, who held the similar honorary office of hereditary butler, 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; how he served as steward at the
coronation of Eleanor, queen of Henry III., is described in the
Exchequer Red Book. The office of steward in France, then recently
suppressed, had for some time been the highest office of state in that
kingdom, and Simon de Montfort appears to have considered that his
hereditary stewardship entitled him to high official position in
England; and after his victory at Lewes he repeatedly figures as steward
of England in official documents under the great seal. After Simon's
death at Evesham 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 received a
fresh grant of the stewardship to himself and the heirs of his body from
Edward II.; and this earl it was who, during the weak administration of
the last-mentioned king, first put forward in a celebrated tract the
claim of the steward to be the second personage in the realm and supreme
judge in parliament, a claim which finds some slight recognition in the
preamble to the statute passed against the Despencers in the first year
of Edward III.
Earl Thomas was executed for treason, and though his attainder was
reversed he left no issue, and 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 honor, of Leicester. John of Gaunt,
indeed, at a time when it was possible that he would never obtain the
Leicester moiety of the Lancastrian estates, seems to have made an
ingenious but quite unfounded claim to the office as annexed to the
honor of Hinckley. 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 coronation 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 Frevile 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 appointed to preside at the judgment of peers
delivered in Southampton 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 Baga de Secretis), which
thenceforth became the regular place of custody for important state
trials. Latterly, and possibly from its inception, this repository
consisted of a closet with three locks, of which the keys were
entrusted, one to the chief justice of England, 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.
For about a century and a half prior to the reign of James I. the
criminal jurisdiction of parliament remained in abeyance, and bills of
attainder were the vogue. The practice of appointing a steward on these
occasions to execute judgment upon a peer was kept up till 1477, when
George, duke of Clarence, was attainted, and then dropped. Under the
Stuarts the criminal jurisdiction of parliament was again resorted to,
and when the proceedings against a peer were founded on indictment the
appointment of a steward followed as a matter of settled practice. The
proper procedure in cases of impeachment had, on the contrary, never
been defined. On the impeachment of Strafford the lords themselves
appointed Arundel to be high steward. In Danby's case a commission under
the great seal issued in the common form adopted for the court of the
steward; this was recalled, and the rule agreed to by a joint committee
of both houses that a steward for trials of peers upon impeachments was
unnecessary. But, as such an appointment was obviously convenient, the
lords petitioned for a steward; and a fresh commission was accordingly
issued in an amended form, which recited the petition, and omitted words
implying that the appointment was necessary. This precedent has been
treated as settling the practice of parliament with regard to
impeachments.
Of the proceedings against peers founded upon indictment very few trials
antecedent to the revolution took place in parliament. The preference
given to the steward's court was largely due to the practice, founded
upon the Southampton case, of summoning only a few peers selected by the
steward, a practice which made it easy for the king to secure a
conviction. This arrangement has been partially abrogated by the Treason
Act of William III., which in cases of treason and misprision of treason
requires that all peers of parliament shall be summoned twenty days at
least before every such trial. The steward's court also differed in
certain other particulars from the high court of parliament. For
example, it was ruled by Lord Chancellor Jeffreys, as steward at the
trial of Lord Delamere, that, in trials of peers which take place during
the recess of parliament in the steward's court, the steward is the
judge of the court, the court is held before him, his warrant convenes
the prisoner to the bar, his summons convenes the peers for the trial,
and he is to determine by his sole authority all questions of law that
arise in the course of the trial, but that he is to give no vote upon
the issue of guilty or not guilty; during a session of parliament, on
the contrary, all the peers are both triers and judges, and the steward
is only as chairman of the court and gives his vote together with the
other lords. Lord Delamere was tried in 1685 in the steward's court;
since then all trials of peers have taken place before the lords in
parliament. The most recent trial was that of Earl Russell in 1901, when
Lord Chancellor Halsbury was made lord high steward. The steward is
addressed as "his grace," he has a rod of office, and the commission
appointing him is dissolved according to custom by breaking this rod.
A court of claims sat and a steward was appointed for the coronation of
Edward VII.; and during the procession in Westminster Abbey the duke of
Marlborough, as steward, carried "St Edward's crown" in front of the
bearer of the Bible (the bishop of London), who immediately preceded the
king; this function of the steward is of modern origin. The steward's
ancient and particular services at coronations are practically obsolete;
the full ceremonies, procession from Westminster Hall and banquet in
which he figured prominently, were abandoned on the accession of William
IV.
For the early history of the steward see L. W. Vernon-Harcourt, _His
Grace the Steward and Trial of Peers_ (1907); for the later history of
the office see Sir E. Coke, _Institutes_ (1797); Cobbett and Howell,
_State Trials_ (1809, seq.); S. M. Phillipps, _State Trials_ (1826);
John Hatsell, _Precedents_, vol. 4 (1818); and Sir M. Foster, _Crown
Law_ (1809). See also the various works on _Coronations_ for the
steward's services on these occasions. (L. W. V.-H.)
LORD HIGH TREASURER, in England, once the third great officer of state.
The office was of Norman origin and dated from 1216. The duty of the
treasurer originally was to act as keeper of the royal treasure at
Winchester, while as officer of the exchequer he sat at Westminster to
receive the accounts of the sheriffs, and appoint officers to collect
the revenue. The treasurer was subordinate to both the justiciar and the
chancellor, but the removal of the chancery from the exchequer in the
reign of Richard I., and the abolition of the office of justiciars in
the reign of Henry III., increased his importance. Indeed, from the
middle of the reign of Henry III. he became one of the chief officers of
the crown. He took an important part in the equitable jurisdiction of
the exchequer, and was now styled not merely king's treasurer or
treasurer of the exchequer, but lord high treasurer and treasurer of the
exchequer. The first office was conferred by delivery of a white staff,
the second by patent. Near the end of the 16th century he had developed
into an official so occupied with the general policy of the country as
to be prevented from supervising personally the details of the
department, and Lord Burleigh employed a secretary for this purpose. On
the death of Lord Salisbury in 1612 the office was put in commission; it
was filled from time to time until 1714, when the duke of Shrewsbury
resigned it; since that time it has always been in commission (see
TREASURY). The Scottish treasury was merged with the English by the Act
of Union, but the office of lord high treasurer for Ireland was
continued until 1816.
LORD HOWE, an island of the southern Pacific Ocean, lying about 31° 36´
S., 159° 5´ E., 520 m. E.N.E. of Sydney. Pop. 120. It was discovered in
1778 by Lieutenant Ball (whose name is commemorated in the adjacent
islet of Ball's Pyramid), and is a dependency of New South Wales. It
measures about 5½ m. by 1 m., and is well wooded and hilly (reaching a
height of 2840 ft. at the southern end), being of volcanic formation,
while there are coral reefs on the western shore. It has a pleasant
climate. The name Lord Howe is given also to an islet of the Santa Cruz
group, and to two islands, also known under other names--Mopiha, of the
Society group, and Ongtong Java of the Solomon Islands.
LORD JUSTICE CLERK, in Scotland, a judge next in rank to the lord
justice-general. He presides in the second division of the court of
session, and in the absence of the lord justice-general, presides in the
court of justiciary. The justice clerk was originally not a judge at
all, but simply clerk and legal assessor of the justice court. In course
of time he was raised from the clerk's table to the bench, and by custom
presided over the court in the absence of the justice-general. Up to
1672 his position was somewhat anomalous, as it was doubtful whether he
was a clerk or a judge, but an act of that year, which suppressed the
office of justice-depute, confirmed his position as a judge, forming
him, with the justice-general and five of the lords of session into the
court of justiciary. The lord justice clerk is also one of the officers
of state for Scotland, and one of the commissioners for keeping the
Scottish Regalia. His salary is £4800 a year.
LORD JUSTICE-GENERAL, the highest judge in Scotland, head of the court
of justiciary, called also the lord president, and as such head of the
court of session and representative of the sovereign. The office of
justice-general was for a considerable time a sinecure post held by one
of the Scottish nobility, but by the Court of Session Act 1830, it was
enacted that, at the termination of the existing interest, the office
should be united with that of lord president of the court of session,
who then became presiding judge of the court of justiciary. The salary
is £5000 a year.
LORD KEEPER OF THE GREAT SEAL, in England, formerly a great officer of
state. The Great Seal of England, which is affixed on all solemn
occasions to documents expressing the pleasure of the sovereign, was
first adopted by Edward the Confessor (see SEALS), and entrusted to a
chancellor for keeping. The office of chancellor from the time of Becket
onwards varied much in importance; the holder being an ecclesiastic, he
was not only engaged in the business of his diocese, but sometimes was
away from England. Consequently, it became not unusual to place the
personal custody of the great seal in the hands of a vice-chancellor or
keeper; this, too, was the practice followed during a temporary vacancy
in the chancellorship. This office gradually developed into a permanent
appointment, and the lord keeper acquired the right of discharging all
the duties connected with the great seal. He was usually, though not
necessarily, a peer, and held office during the king's pleasure, he was
appointed merely by delivery of the seal, and not, like the chancellor,
by patent. His status was definitely fixed (in the case of lord keeper
Sir Nicholas Bacon) by an act of Elizabeth, which declared him entitled
to "like place, pre-eminence, jurisdiction, execution of laws, and all
other customs, commodities, and advantages" as the lord chancellor. In
subsequent reigns the lord keeper was generally raised to the
chancellorship, and retained the custody of the seal. The last lord
keeper was Sir Robert Henley (afterwards Lord Northington), who was made
chancellor on the accession of George III.
LORD MAYOR'S DAY, in England, the 9th of November, the date of the
inauguration of the lord mayor of London (see Vol. XVI., p. 966), marked
by a pageant known as the Lord Mayor's Show. The first of these pageants
was held in 1215. The idea originated in the stipulation made in a
charter then granted by John that the citizen chosen to be mayor should
be presented to the king or his justice for approval. The crowd of
citizens who accompanied the mayor on horseback to Westminster developed
into a yearly pageant, which each season became more elaborate. Until
the 15th century the mayor either rode or walked to Westminster, but in
1453 Sir John Norman appears to have set a fashion of going by water.
From 1639 to 1655 the show disappeared owing to Puritan opposition. With
the Restoration the city pageant was revived, but interregnums occurred
during the years of the plague and fire, and in 1683 when a quarrel
broke out between Charles and the city, ending in the temporary
abrogation of the charter. In 1711 an untoward accident befell the show,
the mayor Sir Gilbert Heathcote (the original of Addison's Sir Andrew
Freeport) being thrown by his horse. The next year a coach was, in
consequence, provided for the chief magistrate. In 1757 this was
superseded by a gilded and elaborately decorated equipage costing
£10,065 which was used till 1896, when a replica of it was built to
replace it.
LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL, in England, one of the great officers of
state, and a member of the ministry. It was only in 1679 that the office
of lord president became permanent. Previously either the lord
chancellor, the lord keeper of the seal, or some particular court
official took formal direction of the Privy Council. In the reign of
Charles I. a special lord president of the council was appointed, but in
the following reign the office was left unfilled. The office was of
considerable importance when the powers of the Privy Council, exercised
through various committees, were of greater extent than at the present
time. For example, a committee of the lords of the council was formerly
responsible for the work now dealt with by the secretary of state for
foreign affairs; so also with that now discharged by the Board of Trade.
The lord president up to 1855--when a new post of vice-president of the
council was created--was responsible for the education department. He
was also responsible for the duties of the council in regard to public
health, now transferred to the Local Government Board, and for duties in
regard to agriculture, now transferred to the Board of Agriculture and
Fisheries. The duties of the office now consist of presiding on the not
very frequent occasions when the Privy Council meets, and of the drawing
up of minutes of council upon subjects which do not belong to any other
department of state. The office is very frequently held in conjunction
with other ministerial offices, for example, in Gladstone's fourth
ministry the secretary of state for India was also lord president of the
council, and in the conservative ministry of 1903 the holder of the
office was also president of the Board of Education. The lord president
is appointed by a declaration made in council by the sovereign. He is
invariably a member of the House of Lords, and he is also included in
the cabinet.
LORDS JUSTICES OF APPEAL, in England, the ordinary judges of the court
of appeal, the appellate division of the High Court of Justice. Their
style was provided for by the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1877. The
number was fixed at five by the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1881, s.
3. Their salary is £5000 a year (see APPEAL).
LORDS OF APPEAL IN ORDINARY, in England, certain persons (limited to
four), who, having held high judicial office or practised at the bar for
not less than fifteen years, sit as members of the House of Lords to
adjudicate in cases before that House in its legal capacity, and also to
aid the judicial committee of the Privy Council in hearing appeals. Of
the four lords of appeal in ordinary one is usually appointed from the
Irish bench or bar and one from Scotland. Their salary is £6000 a year.
They hold office on the same conditions as other judges. By the
Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876, under which they are appointed, lords
of appeal in ordinary are, by virtue of and according to the date of
their appointment, entitled during life to rank as barons and during the
time that they continue in office are entitled to a writ of summons to
attend, and to sit and vote in the House of Lords. They are life peers
only. The patent of a lord of appeal in ordinary differs from that of a
baron in that he is not "created" but "nominated and appointed to be a
Lord of Appeal in Ordinary by the style of Baron."
LORD STEWARD, in England, an important official of the king's household.
He is always a member of the government, a peer and a privy councillor.
Up to 1782, the office was one of considerable political importance and
carried cabinet rank. The lord steward receives his appointment from the
sovereign in person, and bears a white staff as the emblem and warrant
of his authority. He is the first dignitary of the court. In the
_Statutes of Eltham_ he is called "the lord great master," but in the
_Household Book_ of Queen Elizabeth "the lord steward," as before and
since. In an act of Henry VIII. (1539) "for placing of the lords," he is
described as "the grand master or lord steward of the king's most
honourable household." He presides at the Board of Green Cloth.[1] In
his department are the treasurer and comptroller of the household, who
rank next to him. These officials are usually peers or the sons of peers
and privy councillors. They sit at the Board of Green Cloth, carry white
staves, and belong to the ministry. But the duties which in theory
belong to the lord steward, treasurer and comptroller of the household
are in practice performed by the master of the household, who is a
permanent officer and resides in the palace. He is a white-staff officer
and a member of the Board of Green Cloth but not of the ministry, and
among other things he presides at the daily dinners of the suite in
waiting on the sovereign. In his case history repeats itself. He is not
named in the _Black Book_ of Edward IV. or in the _Statutes_ of Henry
VIII., and is entered as "master of the household and clerk of the green
cloth" in the _Household Book_ of Queen Elizabeth. But he has superseded
the lord steward of the household, as the lord steward of the household
at one time superseded the lord high steward of England.
In the lord steward's department are the officials of the Board of Green
Cloth, the coroner ("coroner of the verge"), and paymaster of the
household, and the officers of the almonry (see ALMONER). Other offices
in the department were those of the cofferer of the household, the
treasurer of the chamber, and the paymaster of pensions, but these, with
six clerks of the Board of Green Cloth, were abolished in 1782. The lord
steward had formerly three courts besides the Board of Green Cloth under
him. First, the lord steward's court, superseded (1541) by--second--the
Marshalsea court, a court of record having jurisdiction, both civil and
criminal within the verge (the area within a radius of 12 m. from where
the sovereign is resident), and originally held for the purpose of
administering justice between the domestic servants of the sovereign,
"that they might not be drawn into other courts and their service lost."
Its criminal jurisdiction had long fallen into disuse and its civil
jurisdiction was abolished in 1849. Third, the palace court, created by
letters patent in 1612 and renewed in 1665 with jurisdiction over all
personal matters arising between parties within 12 m. of Whitehall (the
jurisdiction of the Marshalsea court, the City of London, and
Westminster Hall being excepted). It differed from the Marshalsea court
in that it had no jurisdiction over the sovereign's household nor were
its suitors necessarily of the household. The privilege of practising
before the palace court was limited to four counsel. It was abolished in
1849. The lord steward or his deputies formerly administered the oaths
to the members of the House of Commons. In certain cases (messages from
the sovereign under the sign-manual) "the lords with white staves" are
the proper persons to bear communications between the sovereign and the
houses of parliament.
AUTHORITIES.--_Statutes of Eltham; Household Book_ of Queen Elizabeth;
Coke, _Institutes_; Reeves, _History of the Law of England_; Stephen,
_Commentaries on the Laws of England_; Hatsell, _Precedents of
Proceedings in the House of Commons_; May, _Parliamentary Practice_.