Lord Great Chamberlain of England | |
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since 8 September 2022 Joint hereditary officeholders
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Style | The Right Honourable |
Type | Great Officer of State |
Appointer | The Monarch |
Term length | At His Majesty's pleasure |
Formation | c. 1126 |
First holder | Robert Malet |
Superseded by | Lord High Treasurer (in monetary affairs) |
Succession | Hereditary |
Salary | Unpaid |
The Lord Great Chamberlain of England [1] is the sixth of the Great Officers of State, ranking beneath the Lord Privy Seal but above the Lord High Constable. The office of Lord Great Chamberlain is an ancient one: it was first created around 1126 (in Norman times) and has been in continuous existence since 1138. The incumbent is Rupert Carington, 7th Baron Carrington.
The Lord Great Chamberlain is entrusted by the Sovereign with custody of the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the British Parliament, and serves as his or her representative therein. [2] The Lord Great Chamberlain enjoys plenary jurisdiction in those precincts of the Palace of Westminster not assigned to either the House of Lords or the House of Commons: namely, the Royal Apartments, Central Lobby, and the Crypt Chapel. To this end, the Lord Great Chamberlain is responsible for the use, preservation, and occupation of such spaces. [lower-alpha 1] In addition, the Lord Great Chamberlain is one of the three commissioners who exercise control and maintenance over Westminster Hall; the other commissioners are the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords and the Speaker of the House of Commons. [4]
The Lord Great Chamberlain performs other less routine functions as custodian of the Palace of Westminster. For example, the Lord Great Chamberlain welcomes foreign heads of state visiting the Palace of Westminster. Likewise, the Lord Great Chamberlain is responsible for attending upon the Sovereign and other members of the British royal family whenever present at the parliamentary estate. In the latter case, the Lord Great Chamberlain is authorised to make any administrative arrangements necessary for delivery of services required by the Sovereign. [5] [6]
However, the Lord Great Chamberlain’s most publicly visible parliamentary role is participating in state openings of Parliament. To this end, the Lord Great Chamberlain receives the Sovereign at the Norman Porch, enrobes him or her with the Robe of State and the Imperial State Crown in the Robing Room, and leads the Sovereign’s procession through the Royal Gallery and the Prince's Chamber into the Lords Chamber. [7] It is also the Lord Great Chamberlain who, upon the command of the Sovereign, directs Black Rod to summon members of the House of Commons to attend the House of Lords for the purpose of hearing the speech from the throne. [8]
Parliamentary responsibilities aside, the Lord Great Chamberlain also has a major part to play in royal coronations, having the right to dress the monarch on coronation day and to serve the monarch water before and after the coronation banquet. Likewise, the Lord Great Chamberlain invests the monarch with the insignia of rule during the coronation service. [9] [10] On state occasions like coronations, the Lord Great Chamberlain wears a distinctive scarlet court uniform and bears a gold key and a white staff as the insignia of his office. [11]
The office of Lord Great Chamberlain is distinct from the non-hereditary office of Lord Chamberlain of the Household, a position in the monarch's household. This office arose in the 14th century as a deputy of the Lord Great Chamberlain to fulfil the latter's duties in the Royal Household, but now they are quite distinct.
The House of Lords Act 1999 removed the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords, but the Act provided that a hereditary peer exercising the office of Lord Great Chamberlain (as well as the Earl Marshal) be exempt from such a rule, in order to perform ceremonial functions.
The position is a hereditary one, held since 1780 in gross. At any one time, no single person actually exercises the office of Lord Great Chamberlain. The various individuals who hold fractions of the office are properly each Joint Hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain. They choose one individual of the rank of a knight or higher to be the Deputy Lord Great Chamberlain. [12] [13] Under an agreement made in 1912, the right to exercise the office for a given reign rotates among three families (of the then three joint office holders) in proportion to the fraction of the office held. For instance, the Marquesses of Cholmondeley hold one-half of the office, and may therefore exercise the office or appoint a deputy every alternate reign. Whenever one of the three shares of the 1912 agreement is split further, the joint heirs of this share have to agree among each other, who should be their deputy or any mechanism to determine who of them has the right to choose a deputy.
The office was originally held by Robert Malet, a son of one of the leading companions of William the Conqueror. In 1133, however, King Henry I declared Malet's estates and titles forfeit, and awarded the office of Lord Great Chamberlain to Aubrey de Vere, whose son was created Earl of Oxford. Thereafter, the Earls of Oxford held the title almost continuously until 1526, with a few intermissions due to the forfeiture of some Earls for treason. In 1526, however, the fourteenth Earl of Oxford died, leaving his aunts as his heirs. The earldom was inherited by a more distant heir-male, his second cousin. The Sovereign (at that time Henry VIII) then decreed that the office belonged to the Crown, and was not transmitted along with the earldom. The Sovereign appointed the fifteenth Earl to the office, but the appointment was deemed for life and was not hereditary. The family's association with the office was interrupted in 1540, when the fifteenth earl died and Thomas Cromwell, the King's chief adviser, was appointed Lord Great Chamberlain. [14] After Cromwell's attainder and execution later the same year, the office passed through a few more court figures, until 1553, when it was passed back to the De Vere family, the sixteenth Earl of Oxford, again as an uninheritable life appointment. [15] Later, Queen Mary I ruled that the Earls of Oxford were indeed entitled to the office of Lord Great Chamberlain on an hereditary basis.
Thus, the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth Earls of Oxford held the position on a hereditary basis until 1626, when the eighteenth Earl died, again leaving a distant relative as heir male, but a closer one as a female heir. The House of Lords eventually ruled that the office belonged to the heir general, Robert Bertie, 14th Baron Willoughby de Eresby, who later became Earl of Lindsey. The office remained vested in the Earls of Lindsey, who later became Dukes of Ancaster and Kesteven.
In 1779, however, the fourth Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven died, leaving two sisters as female heirs, and an uncle as an heir male. The uncle became the fifth and last Duke, but the House of Lords ruled that the two sisters were jointly Lord Great Chamberlain and could appoint a Deputy to fulfil the functions of the office. The barony of Willoughby de Eresby fell into abeyance between the two sisters, but the Sovereign terminated the abeyance and granted the title to the elder sister, Priscilla Bertie, 21st Baroness Willoughby de Eresby. The office of Lord Great Chamberlain, however, was divided between Priscilla and her younger sister Georgiana. Priscilla's share was eventually split between two of her granddaughters, and has been split several more times since then. By contrast, Georgiana's share has been inherited by a single male heir each time; that individual has in each case been the Marquess of Cholmondeley, a title created for Georgiana's husband.
In 1902 it was ruled by the House of Lords that the then joint office holders (the 1st Earl of Ancaster, the 4th Marquess of Cholmondeley, and the Earl Carrington, later Marquess of Lincolnshire) had to agree on a deputy to exercise the office, subject to the approval of the Sovereign. Should there be no such agreement, the Sovereign should appoint a deputy until an agreement be reached. [16]
In 1912 an agreement was reached. The office, or right to appoint the person to exercise the office, would thereafter rotate among the three joint office holders and their heirs after them, changing at the start of each successive reign. Cholmondeley and his heirs would serve in every other reign; Ancaster and Carrington would each serve once in four reigns. [17]
As the Cholmondeley share and the Ancaster share (held since 1983 by the Baroness Willoughby de Eresby) are not further split, each of these holders decides in his or her turn to act as Lord Great Chamberlain or to name a person who will act as Lord Great Chamberlain. The Carrington share was divided at his death among his five daughters and their heirs, and has since been further divided, with 11 people holding shares as of September 2022. At accession of Charles III the turn fell to the Carrington heirs who named their cousin Rupert Carington, 7th Baron Carrington, to act as Lord Great Chamberlain. [18] [19] [20] Being descended from the Earl's younger brother he himself has no share of the office.
On 6 May 2023, the Lord Great Chamberlain presented spurs to King Charles III as part of Charles' coronation. The spurs were included among the first English coronation ornaments in 1189 and were used during the coronation of Richard I. [21]
The fractions show the holder's share in the office, and the date they held it. The current (as of 2022 [update] ) holders of the office are shown in bold face.
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Peerages in the United Kingdom form a legal system comprising both hereditary and lifetime titles, composed of various ranks, and within the framework of the Constitution of the United Kingdom form a constituent part of the legislative process and the British honours system. The British monarch is considered the fount of honour and is notionally the only person who can grant peerages, though there are many conventions about how this power is used, especially at the request of the British government. The term peerage can be used both collectively to refer to the entire body of titled nobility, and individually to refer to a specific title. British peerage title holders are termed peers of the Realm.
Government in medieval monarchies generally comprised the king's companions, later becoming the royal household, from which the officers of state arose, initially having household and government duties. Later some of these officers became two: one serving state and one serving household. They were superseded by new officers, or were absorbed by existing officers. Many of the officers became hereditary and thus removed from practical operation of either the state or the household.
Earl of Lindsey is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1626 for the 14th Baron Willoughby de Eresby. He was First Lord of the Admiralty from 1635 to 1636 and also established his claim in right of his mother to the hereditary office of Lord Great Chamberlain of England. Lord Lindsey fought on the Royalist side in the Civil War and was mortally wounded at the Battle of Edgehill on 23 October 1642. He was succeeded by his son, the second earl. He also fought at Edgehill and surrendered to the Parliamentarians in order to attend his mortally wounded father. Lord Lindsey later fought at the First Battle of Newbury, Second Battle of Newbury, and at Naseby. His son from his second marriage, James, was created Earl of Abingdon in 1682. He was succeeded by his son from his first marriage to Martha Cockayne, the third Earl. He represented Boston in the House of Commons and served as Lord Lieutenant of Lincolnshire.
Marquess of Cholmondeley is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1815 for George Cholmondeley, 4th Earl of Cholmondeley.
Baron Willoughby de Eresby is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1313 for Robert de Willoughby. Since 1983, the title has been held by Jane Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, 28th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby.
David George Philip Cholmondeley, 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley,, styled Viscount Malpas from birth until 1968, and subsequently Earl of Rocksavage until 1990, is a British peer and filmmaker who acted as Lord Great Chamberlain of the United Kingdom from 1990 to 2022.
Peregrine Bertie, 2nd Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven, styled The Honourable Peregrine Bertie between 1686 and 1704, Lord Willoughby de Eresby between 1704 and 1715 and Marquess of Lindsey between 1715 and 1723, was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1708 until 1715 when he was called to the House of Lords.
George James Cholmondeley, 1st Marquess of Cholmondeley,, styled Viscount Malpas between 1764 and 1770 and known as The Earl of Cholmondeley between 1770 and 1815, was a British peer and politician.
Gilbert James Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, 3rd Earl of Ancaster, styled Lord Willoughby de Eresby from 1910 to 1951, was a British Conservative politician.
Peter Robert Drummond-Burrell, 2nd Baron Gwydyr, 22nd Baron Willoughby de Eresby PC, was a British politician and nobleman.
George Horatio Cholmondeley, 2nd Marquess of Cholmondeley, PC, styled Viscount Malpas until 1815 and Earl of Rocksavage between 1815 and 1827, was a British peer and Lord Great Chamberlain of England between 1830 and 1838. Before being called to the House of Lords, he was a Tory Member of Parliament from 1817 through 1821.
William Henry Hugh Cholmondeley, 3rd Marquess of Cholmondeley, styled Lord Henry Cholmondeley from 1815 until 1870, was a British peer and Conservative Member of Parliament.
George Horatio Charles Cholmondeley, 5th Marquess of Cholmondeley, styled Earl of Rocksavage from birth until 1923, was a British peer. He was the Lord Great Chamberlain of England in 1936 and also between 1952 and 1966.
George Henry Hugh Cholmondeley, 4th Marquess of Cholmondeley was a British peer and a hereditary joint Lord Great Chamberlain of England. He exercised the office of Lord Great Chamberlain during the reign of King Edward VII (1901–1910).
George Hugh Cholmondeley, 6th Marquess of Cholmondeley, styled Earl of Rocksavage from 1923 until 1968, was a British peer who served as Lord Great Chamberlain of England between 1968 and 1990.
Nancy Jane Marie Heathcote-Drummond-Willoughby, 28th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby, is a British aristocratic landowner related to the Astor family and former member of the House of Lords.
Georgiana Charlotte Cholmondeley, Marchioness of Cholmondeley, formerly Lady Georgiana Charlotte Bertie, was the wife of George Cholmondeley, 1st Marquess of Cholmondeley.
Rupert Francis John Carington, 7th Baron Carrington,, is a British banker, hereditary peer and crossbench member of the House of Lords.
In the United Kingdom, the Great Officers of State are traditional ministers of the Crown who either inherit their positions or are appointed to exercise certain largely ceremonial functions or to operate as members of the government. Separate Great Officers exist for England and Wales, Scotland, and formerly for Ireland, though some exist for Great Britain and the United Kingdom as a whole.
THE QUEEN has been pleased by Warrant under Her Majesty's Royal Sign Manual, bearing date 5th November 1990, to approve the selection of David George Philip, Marquess of Cholmondeley to perform and execute the office of Lord Great Chamberlain of England.