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LORD STEWARD

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 7 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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LORD STEWARD  , in See also:England, an important See also:official of the See also:king's See also:household . He is always a member of the See also:government, a peer and a privy councillor . Up to 1782, the See also:office was one of considerable See also:political importance and carried See also:cabinet See also:rank . The See also:lord steward receives his See also:appointment from the See also:sovereign in See also:person, and bears a See also:white See also:staff as the See also:emblem and See also:warrant of his authority . He is the first dignitary of the See also:court . In the Statutes of Eltham he is called " the lord See also:great See also:master," but in the Household See also:Book of See also:Queen See also:Elizabeth " the lord steward," as before and since . In an See also:act of See also:Henry VIII . (1539) " for placing of the lords," he is described as " the See also:grand master or lord steward of the king's most See also:honourable household." He presides at the See also:Board of See also:Green See also:Cloth.' In his See also:department are the treasurer and See also:comptroller of the household, who rank next to him . These officials are usually peers or the sons of peers and privy councillors . They sit at the Board of Green Cloth, carry white staves, and belong to the See also:ministry . But the duties which in theory belong to the lord steward, treasurer and comptroller of the household are in practice performed by the master of the household, who is a permanent officer and resides in the See also:palace . He is a white-staff officer and a member of the Board of Green Cloth but not of the ministry, and among other things he pre-sides at the daily dinners of the See also:suite in waiting on the sovereign .

In his See also:

case See also:history repeats itself . He is not named in the See also:Black Book of See also:Edward IV. or in the Statutes of Henry VIII., and is entered as " master of the household and clerk of the green cloth " in the Household Book of Queen Elizabeth . But he has superseded the lord steward of the household, as the lord steward of the household at one See also:time superseded the lord high steward of England . In the lord steward's department are the officials of the Board of Green Cloth, the See also:coroner (" coroner of the See also:verge " ), and pay-master of the household, and the See also:officers of the See also:almonry (see See also:ALMONER) . Other offices in the department were those of the cofferer of the household, the treasurer of the chamber, and the paymaster of See also:pensions, but these, with six clerks of the Board of Green Cloth, were abolished in 1782 . The lord steward had formerly three courts besides the Board of Green Cloth under him . First, the lord steward's court, superseded (1541) bysecond—the See also:Marshalsea court, a court of See also:record having See also:jurisdiction, both See also:civil and criminal within the verge (the See also:area within a See also:radius of 12 M. from where the sovereign is See also:resident), and originally held for the purpose of administering See also:justice between the domestic servants of the sovereign, " that they might not be See also:drawn into other courts and their service lost." Its criminal ' A See also:committee of the king's household, consisting of the lord steward and his subordinates, charged with the See also:duty of examining and passing all the accounts of the household . The board had also See also:power to punish all offenders within the verge or jurisdiction of the palace, which extended in every direction for 200 yds. from the See also:gates of the court yard . The name is derived from the green-covered table at which the transactions of the board were originally conducted . operas and even tragedies, which are enumerated by Dr See also:Hermann Seeliger in his Loreleysage in Dichlung and Musik (See also:Leipzig-Reudnitz, 1898) . The favourite poem with composers was See also:Heine's, set to See also:music by some twenty-five musicians, the settings by See also:Friedrich Silcher (from an old folk-See also:song) and by See also:Liszt being the most famous .

End of Article: LORD STEWARD
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JOHN LORD (1810-1894)

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