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clear, that they might make their sufficient deputy to exercise the office for them—So this question and answer are stated in Keilway's Reports. In Dyer's Reports thus: How the daughters before marriage could execute the office? It was clearly resolved that they might make their sufficient deputy to execute it for them, and after the marriage, the husband of the eldest might execute it solely. But it is clear that the profits of the manors belonged to them equally, and making but one heir, the husband of the eldest would properly be deemed to have the preference of executing the office solely; and as both of the husbands could not be the officer, but one of them only, it was more fit that it should be exercised by the husband of the eldest. This is conformable to [158] the general law of coparceners in matters not divisible, and where there is nothing for contribution or allowance to the younger, viz. the eldest to have the first presentation to a living, the first draught of fish in a fishery, and in the enjoyment of a common, the eldest to have it first, for one portion of time, and then the youngest for the same time afterwards.

But the third question in the Duke of Buckingham's case, shews it to be no way in point to the present case. The third question was more difficult, says the report of Dyer; the report of Keilway calls it the more diffuse question, and it came to be so diffuse that the sight of the question is at last lost: viz, whether, by the unity of parcel of the tenancy in the King, the office was determined, or it should have its existence and continuance in the other coparcener It was resolved clearly, says the report of Dyer, that it should have continuance in the other, for otherwise they would have the two manors, without doing any service for them; and they are compellable at the pleasure of the King to exercise the office; and the King may refuse it at his election and pleasure; as well as a common lord of a seignory may refuse the receipt of homage of his tenant, if it be not homage ancestrell. By this it clearly appears to have been an office annexed to the manors, or more properly a service reserved for them instead of rent. By the report of Keilway, it appears that the claim of the Duke of Buckingham to the office of Constable, by descent from the eldest of the two daughters of Humphrey de Bohun, was not merely in the right of eldest only, as seems to be supposed by Mr. Attorney General, but in truth he was the sole heir, as appears by Keilway's report; for, upon the truth of the matter, Erneley, the King's Attorney, said secretly that the Lord the King, who then was Henry VIII. was not heir to Humphrey de Bohun in blood, for all the blood of Mary, mother to King Henry the Fifth, was spent and gone; whereby the Duke was sole heir to Humphrey de Bohun, which was a dangerous thing to the Lord the King, for he had not any right on the part of the said Mary unless by an act of parliament, wherefore it was good policy for the King to leave the Duke to make his title to the said office, as a thing in gross. And it was very true, that the Duke might prescribe for the office, for that he and all his ancestors, time out of mind, had been used to exercise the said office.

This history of the case must destroy its authority if it had been in point, which the petitioners conceive it not to be. But this case is a strong one to prove the difference between this high personal dignity, or office in gross, as it is termed, of the Lord Great Chamberlain, and any office annexed or tied to honours, manors, or lands; for the Lord Chief Justice Crew, speaking of this office, says, if Humphrey de Bohun had sold the land by which the office was holden to a stranger, the purchaser should have been Constable de Jure without all question.

The performance of the office of Steward of England, is a service reserved upon the grant of the honour of Hinckley, and that honour is held by the service of being Steward of England, as the [159] three manors above-mentioned were held by Humphrey de Bohun and his heirs, by the service of being Constable of England, and is subject to the same observations.

The office of Champion of England, in the Dymock family, is a service reserved upon the grant of lands, and is subject to the same observations as the offices of Constable and Steward.

The last case quoted by Mr. Attorney General, of the Marshal of England, is supposed to be directly in point, as being an office in gross, and not annexed or tied to any lands or local inheritance. But this seems to be a mistake, for it appears by a record, still preserved in the Exchequer, of the presentment of jurors at assizes, held at Windsor, in Berkshire, before the King's justices itinerant, in the twelfth year