continent. This affair ended in a mere war of words; but the real motive of Louis was subsequently avowed by him to be the revenging on Henry what he had "done against king Richard," the son-in-law of the king of France. "With regard to your high station," he smartly says, "I do not think the divine virtues have placed you there. God may have dissembled with you, and have set you on a throne, like many other princes, whose reign has ended in confusion; but in consideration of my own honour I do not wish to be compared with you."

An Inquisitio post mortem, dated in the 7th of Edward III., speaks of the tenure of the manor appertaining to the royal champion as follows: "That the manor of Scrivelsby is holden by grand sergeanty, to wit by the service of finding, on the day of coronation, an armed knight, who shall prove by his body, if need be, that the king is true and rightful heir to the kingdom."

It is remarkable that this important document neither prescribes the absolute appearance of the lord of the manor as knight, but

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only that he is bound to find an armed knight' if required; nor does it describe the office as hereditary. With regard to the latter point, it would seem that possession is the entire law of the case, and we suppose the office would pass with the property by sale with respect to the former, the honour seems to have called forth the valour of every successive lord, and princes have seldom imagined that their subjects can in such a cause overstep their duty.

Anciently, the champion rode with the royal procession from the Hall to the Abbey, and proclaimed the challenge on his way, as well as at the feast: some instances have occurred of its being repeated also in the city, as at the coronation of Henry IV. At his predecessor's coronation it is remarked by Walsingham, that sir John Dimmock, being armed according to custom, came to the door of the Abbey with his attendants before the service was concluded: and that the earl marshal of the day went out to him and said, he should not have made his appearance

so soon.

The fate of our recent and future champions has become of late duly regarded by law. To challenge all who should dispute the pretensions of the king is rightly enough a post of honour; to accept the challenge would always, we know, have been still more bold; but an act of parliament passed during the regency (59 Geo. III. cap. 46.) abolishes altogether the trial and actual battle; so that the champion's lands, after being held with manifest peril for centuries, have at last become a peaceable possession; and all dispute respecting the crown. is of course as fully disposed of. It no longer rests on the valour of a single arm— not even on that of a Marmion, or a Dymoke.

There was another office, that of the Lord High Steward of England, to which in former times much authority was attached. He possessed a kind of vice-regal power on the demise of the crown and until the coronation of the rightful heir, and was a governor of the kingdom immediately under the reigning monarch, so as to be able to control or remove the judicial servants of the crown,

at any time. What was once the importance of this office is still indicated by the temporary guardianship of St. Edward's crown being committed to an officer bearing this title on the day of the coronation, and his honourable place of walking immediately before the king in procession. The Earls of Leicester once enjoyed this great dignity hereditarily; through them it descended to the De Montford family, until, on the attainder of the last Earl, it was granted by Henry III. to his younger son Edmund, by whom it became transmitted to John of Gaunt, and eventually to Henry IV. while Duke of Lancaster; since which period it has been prudently suffered to merge in the crown.

The Court of Claims takes its origin from the ancient prerogatives of the Lord High Steward, who sat judicially in the Whitehall of the king's palace, at Westminster, to receive the applications and decide upon the claims of all those who held lands on the tenure of performing some personal service at the coronation. It is a court, in fact, exer

cising this part of his ancient office by commission. These services had the name of magnum servitium, or grand sergeanty, as being attached to the person of the king, and involve the honour of knighthood in all cases; no person under the rank of a knight, nor a minor or female tenant, being allowed to perform them.

Numerous offices occur in the list of claims, to which our limits will not allow us to pay attention. Toward him who is every inch a king" every sort of service is supposed to confer honour; and many comparatively trivial duties have been long connected with the more substantial rights of property. The preceding offices require no recognition of the Court of Claims for their exercise; but those which follow are to be substantiated before this tribunal at each successive coronation.

The hereditary Grand Almoner of England is an honour attached to the barony of Bedford. Its duties are to collect and distribute certain monies at the coronation from a silver dish; which the Almoner claims for his fee,