William Camden (1551–1623)

From The Antiquity and Office of the Earl Marshall of England

THERE is a treatise carried about the office of the earl marshal in the time of King Henry the second, and another of the time of Thomas of Brotherton, where I find confusedly what belonged to them in court and camp; as in court, that at the coronation the marshal should have the King’s horse and harness, and the Queen’s palfrey: that he should hold the crown at the coronation; that he should have upon high feasts, as the high usher, the table clothes and cloth of estate for that day: that he keep the hall in quiet; that he should bring offenders within the verge before the high steward; that he should assign lodgings, and when the King passed the seas, each man to his ship: that he shall have for his livery three winter robes at Christmas, and three summer robes at Whitsuntide: that he should have a deputy in the King’s Bench: that he should keep vagabonds from the court: in camp that he should lead the fore-ward: that the constable with him should hold courts in the camp: that he should have certain special forfeitures, as armour and weapons of prisoners, to appoint lodgings, to be abroad till all be lodged, to have fees of armourers and victuallers of the camp, to have all the armour, and whole cloth of towns taken by composition, to have ransom of prisoners escaped, if they be taken again, with many such like, too long here to be specified.

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