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that an office of so high dignity and importance should he comprised either in general words only, or be mentioned in the same loose terms as a stewardship of a court, a bailiff wick of a manor, etc. etc. which are the only subjects intended to be conveyed by this general word offices, in many other acts made about the same period relative to exchanges of lands, or for confirming grants from the crown. And the substance of the award is recited in a deed executed in the 20th of Queen Elizabeth, between the Earl of Northumberland and Sir Robert Wingfield, knight, for the partition of the estates which belonged to the three sisters and heirs general of John the 14th Earl of Oxford, and which deed was confirmed by an act of parliament of the 23d year of the same reign, in terms which make it highly probable that it related to landed property only, and that the word offices was used in the act confirming this award as a general term without any special intent, or that it was meant to operate merely upon offices connected with such property. But the following circumstances put this matter out of doubt. At the time the act 23d of Henry the Eighth, passed for confirming the award, John, the 15th Earl, was in possession of the office for life by a grant from the King; and on his death, 31st of Henry the Eighth, the King granted the office to Thomas Lord Cromwell, and to several other peers of different families, though the 15th Earl left a son of full age, who succeeded him in the Earldom of Oxford, and who, according to the construction now attempted to be put on the act 23d of Henry the Eighth, was entitled to inherit the office. (Vincent, No. 218, etc. Pat. Roll 32d and 34th of Hen. VIII. and 1st and 4th of Edw. VI.) This Earl did not however appear to have made any attempt to resist the admission of any of these other peers, but on the contrary did himself assist at the investiture of the Earl of Warwick into this office in the next reign. By the whole conduct of Henry the Eighth, it appears (An authentic MS. in the Heralds Office, l. 18. 72. b.) as if he considered it as having fallen into abeyance on the death of John, the 14th Earl, in the same manner as a barony in fee would have done. It was further to be observed, that John, the 13th Earl, describes all the property he meant to devise with sufficient precision in his will, but does not by any description contained in it include this office, of which he was certainly in possession when he made his will; well knowing, that the descent of this office could not be varied by any disposition which lie could make of it. And there was much reason to believe, that this award was made merely to settle doubts and questions upon the effects of the limitations in that will. And in the very act itself, which is supposed by the claimant, Lady Willoughby, to confirm this dig-[163]-nity to the 15th Earl, because the word offices occurs after lands, tenements, and other general words describing the property awarded to him, there is a saving clause, in favour of all other persons except the Earl and his heirs, of all right in the property awarded to the co-heirs of the said 14th Earl, and in offices by express mention; which proves equally on their part, that if this word was meant to have any particular operation, offices must have been awarded also to them, for otherwise the saving of right in offices was idle and nugatory, So that no claim or right to the office of Great Chamberlain could be derived, either from the 15th or 16th Earls of Oxford, to his Grace the Duke of Ancaster, the Lady Willoughby of Eresby, her Grace the Duchess Dowager of Atholl, or to any other descendants from the said Earls.

The opinion of the Lords in 1625, that the office might be declared by his Majesty to belong to the Lord Willoughby of Eresby, as heir general to Henry Earl of Oxford, was a decisive proof that the office was considered to be descendible to heirs general. And if Lord Percy could prove, which he clearly could, that he was the heir general of John, the 14th Earl of Oxford, no plea of length of possession could be opposed to his claim; for it could be very satisfactorily shewn, that a claim to this office of dignity cannot be affected by the statute of limitations.

Since the reign of Henry the First, only two instances have occurred in which the right to the office descended through a female; when the former of these happened, in the time of Henry the Eighth, the office was usurped by the 15th Earl against the right. When the other took place, in the reign of Charles the First, the right thus descended was claimed and established; and it was somewhat extraordinary, that the 18th Earl of Oxford, from whom, in the second instance, the right was derived by descent through a female to the Lord Willoughby, had himself no title to that office, but what was founded upon an infringement of the principle of that