First, as to the meaning of Grand and Petit
Serjeanty:

Grand Serjeanty means that a man holds his
lands or tenements direct of the king, on
condition of rendering him some service of the
person—such as carrying his banner or his lance,
leading his army in time of war, bearing his
sword before him at his coronation, being his
marshal—a kind of dignified policeman—his
carver, or his butler; and Petit Serjeanty is
when he holds his lands or tenements—also
direct from the king—in consideration of some
small material service, such as providing him
with a lance, a dagger, a knife, a pair of gilt
spurs, or of mailed gloves; or perhaps a hundred
herrings made into four-and-twenty pies and
duly baked; which the town of Yarmouth, for
example, was bound to render to the sheriffs of
Norwich, to be by them delivered to the lord
of the manor of East Carlton, and by him to
the king; or, as the owner of the lands of
Alesbury, Bucks, who held his fine estate on
condition of finding the king in rushes for his
chamber and straw for his bed, giving him, for
food, three eels in winter, and two green geese
in summer, whenever he came to visit him;
stipulating, though, that his visits should never
be made oftener than thrice in the year. For
the lord of the lands of Alesbury knew that
gracious majesty's too frequent presence would
be something like the gift of the white elephant,
—a mighty honour to receive, but ruinous to
maintain.

All the great offices of the crown are held by
Grand Serjeanty, but greatest and most powerful
of all the officers was the Lord High Steward
of England. For, the Lord High Steward was
the viceroy or lieutenant of the king, second
only to the king, the alter ego, that other I who
ruled everywhere, and over all, save anointed
majesty itself. Among his most important
duties was that of reproving and admonishing
the evil-doers among the nobility. Thus, in the
time of Edward the Confessor, the then Lord
High Steward took Godwin, Earl of Kent, to
task for his ill deeds and malicious counsels,
and in the end deprived him of his earldom.
His power extended over all the law officers and
all the military commanders, both in peace and
in war, and when he sat in council or judgment
he sat under a cloth of estate, and was spoken
to as "Please your Grace the Lord High
Steward of England." This power grew too
great and dangerous for any subject to
exercise, so, when Henry Bolinbroke lifted poor
Richard's crown with his mailed hand, he being
then Lord High Steward by inheritance, the
office became merged in the king, and henceforth
was made a mere matter of symbolism and
temporal arrangement—an honour to be granted
at the coronation, and for that occasion only.
The great lords used to quarrel among each
other for the perquisites of the office. Lord
Thomas, son of that same fourth Henry, and
Lord High Steward at his coronation, argued
some points in loud and decisive terms with
Thomas Earl of Arundel, each claiming "the
vessels of wine which lay under the bar;" Lord
Thomas by virtue of his lord high stewardship,
and the Earl of Arundel because he was
chief butler. The king's son won the day, of
course.

Another high office of the crown held by
Grand Serjeanty was, and is, that of the Lord
Great Chamberlain. The Lord Chamberlain has
"livery and lodging" in the king's court,
besides sundry fees from bishops and archbishops,
and from all the peers of the realm when they
come to do homage and fealty; he has also as
perquisites, forty ells of crimson velvet for his
own robes at the coronation, and the royal bed
and bed-furniture and night apparel used by the
monarch on the eve of the coronation, and the
basin and towels in which the king washes his
hands on the day of coronation: giving for all
these fees the personal service of "bringing the
king his shirt, coif, and wearing clothes when
he rises," carrying at the coronation the coif,
gloves, and body linen, the sword and the scabbard,
the gold to be offered by the king, the
robe royal and the crown, dressing and undressing
the king, and serving him with water
throughout the day wherewith to wash his
hands. And then the lord great chamberlains,
when the grand day was over, used to
quarrel with the other great lords for the king's
night apparel and the king's bed-furniture and
dirty towels, and sometimes got the lawyers to
show how each had exclusive right thereto, and
how the other claimant was but an alien and an
intruder. Did not the Earls of Lindsey and
Derby each petition the Court of Claims for the
forty ells of crimson velvet and the dirty towels,
due to some one after the coronation of James
the Second? and did not the Court of Claims
assign to the Earl of Lindsey all the goods
his soul longed for, to the discomfiture of the
Earl of Derby? All these things read very
strangely to us now, and marvellously like a
leaf out of the Court Circular of an African
king.

The barons of the Cinque Ports claimed, as their
ultimate of human honour, the right of bearing
"a canapye of cloth of golde over the king,
with foure staves and foure belles at the foure
corners, every staffe having foure of those barons
to beare it. And to dyne and sitt at the table,
next to the king, on his right hande, in the hall
the day of his coronation, and for their fees to
have the saide canapye of golde, with the belles
and staves, notwithstanding the Abbot of Westminster
claymed the same." And every great
officer claimed something—cloth of gold, silver
dishes, great swords—a general scramble among
the high and puissant for the coronation loaves
and fishes.

Some of the high and puissant hold their
lands by Grant Serjeanty, as Farnham was
held on consideration of finding a right hand
glove for gracious majesty on the day of
coronation, and supporting gracious majesty's right
arm for all the time it held the "regal verge"
or sceptre; or, as "Peter Picot held the half
of Heydene (Heydon, in Essex), by the