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If by grant of the crown is meant a temporary appointment, it is admitted that, under such an appointment, Sir Thomas de Erpingham did execute the office of Great Chamberlain at the coronation of King Henry the Fourth, and so the Lord Chief Justice Crew, in the year 1626, states the fact to be, that he for that time only was appointed by the king to do it. (Sir William Jones, 1 vol. p. 113.) But that Sir Thomas de Erpingham ever in fact held or exercised the whole of the office, or had any grant or appointment for so doing, is denied; and if this instance is insisted upon, such fact ought to be proved, and satisfactorily made out. Two of the high duties of the office are specified in the act of parliament, and in the execution of which the precedency is still left, viz. to attend the king in person, and to introduce peers into the House of Lords, neither of which duties appear, or are pretended, to have been performed by Sir Thomas de Erpingham.

[155] In the argument of Mr. Justice Doddridge, in the year 1626, as reported at large by Sir William Jones (Sir William Jones, p. 126), that learned judge, who differed in the point of law from the Chief Justice, and the Chief Baron, as to the legal claim between the then heir male and the then heir general, says, that this office of Great Chamberlain hath been diversely granted, not only in tempestuous times, but in halcyon days, and in times of peace and tranquillity. And that after the award made by King Henry the Eighth, which he caused to be confirmed by act of parliament, and after the death of John Earl of Oxford, party to the award, and John his son, father of Edward, either for that he was not so fit to exercise this great office, or upon some other occasion, King Henry the Eighth gave the said office, in the thirty-second year of his reign, to Robert Earl of Sussex, with all fees, etc. which formerly the same King had granted unto Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex. Pat. 32 H. 8. Part 6. That King Edward the Sixth granted the same office afterwards to John, Earl of Somerset, Viscount Lisle, which office formerly, as by the recital appeareth, was granted by the same King to Edward Earl of Hereford, and was by him formerly surrendered to the said King, Pat. 1 E. 6. Part 6. And that the same King, Edward the Sixth, in the fourth year of his reign, granted the said office unto William, Marquis of Northampton, Earl of Essex, and Lord Parr, which he had formerly granted unto John Earl of Warwick, as by the recital appeareth, who had surrendered the same before unto the said King. Pat. 4 E. 6. Part 1. And the learned Judge concludes these instances of the repeated grants of the crown of this great office with this remark, that when this honourable office came into the hand of one not so fitting, it came to the disposition of the Kings of this realm, as the original founders thereof (same book, p. 113); and upon this point the learned Judges agreed; for the Lord Chief Justice says, it is to be presumed that no stranger of blood would enterprize to contract for this office, without the privity and consent of the King, nor any other but a great and eminent peer of the realm, would be so ambitious as to desire it, or should be tolerated by the King to exercise the same; and that he cannot find that the estate of this office was ever granted to any under the degree of a Duke or an Earl, only in 1 Henry the Fourth, the then Earl of Oxford being in disgrace with the King, was not suffered to perform his office at the coronation; but Sir William Eppringham, (meaning Sir Thomas de Erpingham,) for that time only, was appointed by the King to do it.

It then none can or ought to hold the estate of this high dignity and office of Lord Great Chamberlain, but a lord of parliament, as all the grants shew, as all the instances demonstrate, as all usage confirms, as the sages of the law on solemn argument have agreed, there is an end of Mr. Burrell's claim to hold and exercise the office in right of his lady; and the right of the crown to appoint, until there is a capable heir, appears to be without controversy.

[156] As to the other instance, in which the petitioners are so unfortunate as to differ from the learned opinion of the Attorney General, as expressed in his report, viz. the right of an eldest female heir to hold this high dignity and office, and to exercise it by her husband; it may be proper first to observe, that the case in 1626 does not decide any such point; it goes no further than to decide the preference of the title of the heir general, capable of holding and exercising the office, to that of the heir male opposed to it. The present point therefore must depend upon the consideration of the nature of this high dignity and office.

It is a dignity and office of the highest personal trust and confidence; it is held