APPENDIX D 607 In Scotland the hereditary office of marshal was held by the famous family of Keith from very early times. In or about 1458 the dignity of " Earl Marshal " was created tor them (as in England) as an addition to their office of Great Marischal. The dignity became extinct by their attainder in 171 6. The office of Great Chamberlain was bestowed, in or about 1133, on Aubrey de Vere, in fee, to be held as Robert Malet (a great Domesday baron) had held it before him. It was then styled "Magistra cameraria totius Angliae," and its holder was "Magister camerarius." Aubrey's son was made Earl of Oxford, and the office and Earldom descended together, but not uninterruptedly. In 1265 it was lost by adherence to Simon de Montfort, and the then earl's grandson complained in later days to Edward III that it had never been restored. Richard II confirmed it to his favourite, Earl Robert, but his successor. Earl Aubrey, petitioned for it vainly at the coronation of Henry IV (1399). It had been given in 1391 to John (Holand) Earl of Huntingdon yor life, and the Commons vainly petitioned for its restoration to the Veres. They do not seem to have recovered it till 1485, when Earl John's support of Henry VII regained for their house all its honours. But on the death of another earl John in 1526, leaving daughters as his co-heirs, the office was not allowed to pass either to them or to the heir male, but was thenceforth granted by the King /or life only. This point is vital. It had always been supposed, as in the previous edition of this work, that the office was inherited hy the heir male in 1526, which made it incomprehensible, as was there (vol. vi, p. 171) pointed out, how the heir general succeeded, to the exclusion of the heir male, a century later. But the hearing of the rival claims to the office before the Committee for Privileges in 1902 brought to light the fact that the heir male in 1526 was only made Great Chamberlain for life (19 Dec. 1526), and that he was not allowed to inherit the office in fee and indeed vainly petitioned the Crown that he might be allowed it. " Syr," he wrote to Cromwell, " I have sewed (sued) unto the Kynges Heyghnes thys ij yeeres daye for the offices of myn inherytauns, that ys to say the gret chamberlenshypp. . . . How be yt as yet I am at no poynt." This letter has been assigned to 1534, and cannot well be earlier than the end of 1533. As this was so clearly established, counsel for Lord Ancaster and Lord Carrington and for Lord Cholmondeley were compelled to rely solely on the plea that the word "offices" in an "Award" of 13 March 153 1/2 be- tween the heir male and the heirs general, (who had submitted their rival claims to the "hereditaments" of the late earl to the arbitration of the King) covered the Great Chamberlainship. But that "offices" (which occurs among the "general words") cannot possibly have done so is proved (i) by the above letter which is of subsequent date; (2) by the fact that, on the Earl's death, the Great Chamberlainship was given by the King to Thomas (Cromwell), Earl of Essex /or life (18 Apr. 1540), the patent expressly reciting that the late earl's tenure of it was (as was shown above)/r life ("ad terminum vite sue "). It is certain, therefore, that the King had not restored to the Earl the Great Chamberlainship in fee.
