The Lord High Steward of England; Or An Historical Dissertation.

A Landmark in Legal History: The First Dedicated History of the Office of Lord High Steward [Russell, Sambrook Nicholas]. The Lord High Steward of England; Or An Historical Dissertation on the Origin, Antiquity, And Functions of That Officer: Shewing the Difference Between Him and the King's Chief Justiciar, And the Steward of the King's Houshold, And Explaining the Offices of the Two Latter: with Remarks on the Antient and Modern Modes of Trying Peers; And an Epitome of Some Remarkable Tryals in the Reign of Richard II. Never Before Digested and Published: To Which is Added, A Catalogue of the High Stewards of England, From the Conquest to the Present Time, With the Names, Crimes, And Sentences of the Peers whom They Tried. In This Dissertation The Account Given by Lord Chief Justice Coke of the Office of High Steward is Stated and Confuted. London: Printed for C. Parker, Bookseller, 1776. [iv], 155, [1] pp. Copperplate frontispiece. Octavo (7-1/4" x 4-3/4"). Recent period-style calf by Philip Dusel, gilt-edged raised bands and lettering piece to spine, gilt tooling to board edges, endpapers renewed. Moderate toning, faint spotting to title page and a few other leaves. An attractive copy. $850. * Only edition. The Lord High Steward ranked above the Lord Chancellor and the Prime Minister. One of the office's most important powers was the sole legal power to preside over impeachment trials of peers. Since 1421 the office has generally remained vacant. (For trials of peers, the Lord Chancellor was deputized to act as Lord High Steward.) Today, it is now a ceremonial office that is filled for coronation ceremonies. Russell's was the first history of this important office. A fine example of eighteenth-century historical scholarship, a time when antiquarianism was beginning to be displaced by more rigorous research methods, it provided a great deal of unknown information. Also an interpretive work, it refutes Coke's history and definition of the office in his Third Institutes. OCLC locates 7 copies in North American law libraries (Duke, LA-County, Library of Congress, University of Cincinnati, University of Minnesota, University of Washington, Yale). English Short-Title Catalogue T145623.…