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such great offices as have in the course of time descended to heirs general, as appears from the authority of the several cases after stated.

[149] The office of the Steward of England was the inheritance of Hugh de Grentemesnil, who held the honour of Hinckley by that service, and died leaving two daughters (a) his co-heirs; Petronella (or Parnell) the eldest, married Robert, Earl of Leicester, who in her right (b) became seised of the office of Steward of England.

And in one other instance in the same noble family, this office descended upon the eldest co-heir, and was executed by her husband; for the last-mentioned Robert, Earl of Leicester, died, leaving issue one son, sirnamed Fitz Parnell, and two daughters, Amicia and Margery. In the year 1204,(c) Robert Fitz Parnell died without issue, leaving his said sisters his co-heirs, the eldest of whom (Amicia) being married to Simon de Montford, he, in her right, became seised of the honour of Hinckley, and office of Steward of England.

After the decease of Walter,(d) who was Constable of England in the reign of King Henry the First, Milo Fitz Walter, his son (who for his services to the Empress Maud, was by her (e) created Earl of Hereford) enjoyed the last-mentioned office, and died in the year 1144,(f) leaving five sons and three daughters.(g) Margery, Bertie, and Lucie; the five (h) sons successively enjoyed this office, and died without issue, and upon the decease of the survivor of them, the office of Constable of England came to Humphry de Bohun,(i) by his marriage with Margery, the eldest daughter of Milo Fitz Walter.

This office also descended a second time upon the eldest co-heir, and was executed by her husband, for after it had been introduced into the last-mentioned family, in the manner before stated, it was (k) enjoyed by the descendants of Humphry de Bohun for several generations, in a lineal male succession, until the forty-sixth of Edward the Third, when the male line of this family failed by the death of Humphry, then Earl of Hereford, and Constable of England, leaving issue only two daughters, Eleanor (l) and Mary, his co-heirs, between whom the great inheritance of this family was divided.

Eleanor,(m) the eldest daughter, married Thomas of Woodstock, (son to King Edward the Third,) afterwards Duke of Gloucester; the second married Henry Earl of Derby, afterwards King Henry the Fourth. Upon the marriage of the eldest daughter in the fiftieth year of the reign of Edward the Third, the office of Constable of England, was granted to her husband by (n) letters patent, but the letters patent recite the office to be in the King's hands, by reason of the minority of the heirs of the Earl of Hereford, and grant it to hold during the king's pleasure, and so long as the said office should remain in the King's hands from the cause aforesaid. Three years afterwards, viz. in the third year of Richard the Second, the eldest daughter having attained her age of twenty-one years had livery of her lands, and thereby the former letters patent were determined, but her husband continued to [150] be Constable of England to his death, in the twentieth year of Richard the Second, without any new grant, and therefore in her right.

The office of Champion of England, which is of the same tenure with the two great offices aforesaid, having descended to an heir female, appears to have been executed at the coronation of King Richard the Second, by John Dymock, in right of his wife (o).

In the third (p) year of the reign of King Henry the Third, William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, died seised in fee of the office of Marshal of England, leaving five sons and five daughters (q); all the sons successively enjoyed the Earldom and office, and died without issue, and upon the death of the survivor of these sons, in the thirtieth (r) of Henry the Third, Maud, who was the eldest (s) of these daughters, and the widow of Hugh Bigot, Earl of Norfolk, claimed the office of Marshal, as the eldest inheritrix of the person last seised thereof, and her claim was allowed, and the Marshal's rod delivered to her, which, with the King's licence, she gave to her son Roger Bigot, then Earl of Norfolk, who did homage for the same. This appears by a writ (t) directed to the Treasurer and Barons of the Exchequer, commanding them to admit Roger Bigot, Earl of Norfolk, to the Marshal's seat in the Exchequer; and the writ recites, that Matilda, Countess of Norfolk, had, with the King's licence, appointed the said Earl to the office "Quæ Matilda (it is said) habet Esneciam Hæreditatis Walteri Marescalli et cui Rex ea ratione comiserat Virgam Marescalciæ."

Some time after the death of Robert, Duke of Ancaster, Mr. Burrell and Lady Willoughby of Eresby, then Lady Priscilla Barbara Elizabeth Burrell, presented