The last of these earls of Leicester to inherit the hereditary stewardship was Simon V. de Montfort; how he served as steward at the coronation of Eleanor, queen of Henry III., is described in the Exchequer Red Book. The office of steward in France, then recently suppressed, had for some time been the highest office of state in that kingdom, and Simon de Montfort appears to have considered that his hereditary stewardship entitled him to high official position in England; and after his victory at Lewes he repeatedly figures as steward of England in official documents under the great seal. After Simon's death at Evesham his forfeited estates were conferred on his son Edmund of Lancaster, who also obtained a grant of the stewardship, but only for life. Edmund was succeeded by Thomas, earl of Lancaster, who received a fresh grant of the stewardship to himself and the heirs of his body from Edward II.; and this earl it was who, during the weak administration of the last-mentioned king, first put forward in a celebrated tract the claim of the steward to be the second personage in the realm and supreme judge in parliament, a claim which finds some slight recognition in the preamble to the statute passed against the Despencers in the first year of Edward III. Earl Thomas was executed for treason, and though his attainder was reversed he left no issue, and was succeeded in the earldom by his brother Henry. The subsequent earls and dukes of Lancaster were all recognized as stewards of England, the office apparently being treated as annexed to the earldom, or honor, of Leicester. John of Gaunt, indeed, at a time when it was possible that he would never obtain the Leicester moiety of the Lancastrian estates, seems to have made an ingenious but quite unfounded claim to the office as annexed to the honor of Hinckley. Strictly speaking, none of the Lancasters after Thomas had any clear title either by grant or otherwise; such title as they had merged in the crown when Henry IV. usurped the throne. Meanwhile the stewardship had increased in importance. On the accession of Edward III., Henry, earl of Lancaster, as president of the council, had superintended the coronation of the infant king; John of Gaunt did the same for the infant Richard II.; and, as part of the duties involved, sat in the White Hall of Westminster to hear and determine the claims to perform coronation services. The claims were made by petition, and included amongst others: the claim of Thomas of Woodstock to act as constable, the rival claims of John Dymock and Baldwin de Frevile to act as champion, and the claim of the barons of the Cinque Ports to carry a canopy over the king. Minutes of these proceedings, in which the duke is stated to have sat "as steward of England," were enrolled by his order. This is the origin of what is now called the Court of Claims. The precedent of Richard II. has been followed on all subsequent occasions,