The Chamberlain or Comptroller of the King’s Chamber is appointed by the livery. He was originally a King’s officer, and the office was probably instituted soon after the Conquest. It is mentioned in documents of the twelfth century. On June 28, 1232, the office of ‘King’s chamberlain of London’ was granted for life to Peter de Rivallis. His duties and privileges as stated in the grant are very extensive and important. ‘He shall have for life the custody of the King’s houses at Southampton, and the King’s prise of wine there,’ ‘custody of the King’s Jewry, of the mint of England,’ and ‘all other things pertaining to the office of Chamberlain of London.’ By another grant of the same year the said Peter, Treasurer of Poitiers for life, was given the custody of the ports and coasts of England, saving the port of Dover.[277] When the office is mentioned in 1275 it was combined with the offices of Mayor and coroner.
The functions of coroner were often exercised by the chamberlain and sheriffs, and when the chamberlain was called away from the city by the King he appointed a deputy coroner. The office was sometimes held by the King’s butler, to whom appertained the office of coroner.
William Trente, a wine merchant of Bergerac, was appointed King’s butler on the 25th November 1301 (30 Edw. I.)[278] He became also the King’s chamberlain of the city and coroner of London.[279]
Andrew Horn, a fishmonger by trade, who kept a shop in Bridge Street, held the office of chamberlain for several years. He was the compiler of Liber Horn, which contains charters, statutes, grants, etc. To him also has been attributed the authorship of the law treatise of mediæval times entitled the ‘Mirror of Justice.’[280] He died in 1328.
Many attempts were made by the citizens to get the coronership into their own hands, and at last Edward IV. sold the right to appoint a coroner of their own, independent of the King’s butler, for £7000.[281]
The Remembrancer or State Amanuensis is appointed by the Common Council. The office was held from 1571 to 1584 by a distinguished man, Thomas Norton, M.P., who was joint author with Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset, of the tragedy of Gorbaduc. He left a manuscript on the ancient duties of the Lord Mayor and Corporation, an account of which was published by J. Payne Collier in Archæologia (vol. xxxvi. p. 97).
The Common Hunt was an official mentioned in the Liber Albus, where we learn that John Courtenay was appointed to the office in 1417.[282] The office was abolished in the year 1807.
Of officers in immediate attendance on the Mayor may be mentioned the sword-bearer and the sergeant-at-mace.
The first notice of the office of sword-bearer occurs in the Liber Albus (1419), and the first record in the minute books of the appointment of a sword-bearer is in 4 Hen. VI., 1426. Mr. Hope remarks that ‘the absence of earlier notices is most probably due to the