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52-610: The criminal investigation in the United Kingdom was initiated on 6 January 2004 when the coroner of the Queen's Household , Michael Burgess , asked the then Metropolitan Police commissioner , Sir John Stevens , to conduct enquiries into allegations of a cover-up and conspiracy: that MI6 , under the orders of the royal family , deliberately caused the fatal car crash in Paris that killed Diana and Dodi Fayed . The investigation

104-702: A number of reforms being introduced. In 1782 the financial independence of the Lord Steward's Department was reduced (as the Treasury began to take a greater hand in Civil List expenditure), and the office of Cofferer was replaced by that of Paymaster of the Household (an officer with much reduced status and more limited responsibilities). At the same time the Master of the Household was made responsible for

156-579: A subordinate officer: the Master of the Household . In the Royal Household reforms of the 1920s, the Lord Steward's Department was renamed the Master of the Household's Department. At the same time, Lord Steward ceased to be a political appointment and instead became a largely titular office in the gift of the monarch. The Lord Steward continues to be in regular attendance on State and other ceremonial occasions (including State visits, State banquets,

208-530: A team of fourteen experienced police officers nearly three years to compile. Accident Investigation experts from TRL assisted the police enquiry. The British police also carried out investigations in Paris. Because of public interest in Diana, the Metropolitan Police decided to publish the report on the internet, although it had been drafted as an internal police document. The criminal investigation

260-652: Is also forthwith Steward of the whole Court of Marshalsea, that is, the Court of Household, in which he is Judge of life and limb" ( The Black Book of the Household , 1471-72). By the early years of the thirteenth century, the Steward of the Household was seen as having 'a special judicial role within the household, of which he was the appointed head'; and by the 1290s a distinct court of law had emerged, with its own personnel, procedures and jurisdiction, described by Fleta as 'the king's court in his hall before his steward'. In

312-593: The Curia Regis , the office of Steward of the King's Household was indistinguishable from that of Lord (High) Steward of England, which had first been introduced to the realm under William the Conqueror (and which was by the end of the 12th century an hereditary office ). As late as 1221 the hereditary stewardship was still being referred to as a 'stewardship of the royal household'. Under King John , however,

364-670: The Inquests within Verge, etc. Act 1300 ( 28 Edw. 1 c. 3) within the Articuli super Cartas (Articles upon the Charters), which said Second, in 1311 there were Les noveles Ordenances ( 5 Edw. 2 ) (The New Ordinances), which said Wellington described the result of the first statute thus: "By this statute (the whole of which is repealed by Coroner's Act, 1887), the Coroner of

416-584: The Court and he takes precedence over all other officers of the household. Historically the Lord Steward oversaw over the Household ' below stairs '. He also presided at the Board of Green Cloth , which in early centuries had a financial, administrative and judicial role; (latterly the Board retained a vestigial legal remit, until it was finally abolished in a 2004 reform of local government licensing). Prior to 1924

468-625: The Keeper of the Privy Seal and the Steward and Chamberlain of the Household should be chosen by Parliament 'from the ablest persons in the Realm', and remain in office until the next Parliament (in contrast to the hereditary offices of State ). During the reign of King Edward IV , the duties, privileges and precedence of the Lord Steward were comprehensively enumerated in the Black Book of

520-557: The Lord Steward Act 1554 (which remains on the statute book ). "[The] Steward of Household receiveth his charge of the King's high and proper person, and the staff of Household, by these words following: Seneschall tenez le baton de notre hostiell " ( The Black Book of the Household , 1471–72). As steward , the Lord Steward presided over the Household 'below stairs' (while the Lord Chamberlain presided over

572-647: The peace within the Verge and to deal with offenders. By virtue of the Coroners Act 1988, the lord steward continued to appoint the Coroner of the Queen's Household until the office was abolished in 2013 by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 . "He hath the office to call the names of Knights, Citizens and Burgesses, at the Parliament door, the first day of commencement, and to amerce such as fail by

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624-782: The 14th century it was termed the Court of the Steward and Marshal of the King's House, but was more commonly known as the Marshalsea Court . On this basis the Lord Steward acted as principal judge for all offences committed within the Verge of the Royal Court , having both civil and (in earlier years) criminal jurisdiction. He sat as a judge in the Marshalsea Court, and also in the Palace Court (created by Letters Patent of Charles I in 1630), and in this role he

676-774: The Chief Clerk of the Controlment; all of whom had their origins in the Wardrobe. Added to their number in the Tudor period was the Master of the Household (who took precedence after the Cofferer). By the time of the Restoration , the administration of the Lord Steward's Department was for the most part delegated to the Board of Green Cloth, which served as the central accounting and organisational facility. Apart from

728-522: The Counting-house, as recorders and witnesses to the truth" ( The Black Book of the Household , 1471-72). In the 14th century, the King's Wardrobe , previously an independent and powerful financial office, was absorbed into the King's Household and its officers and responsibilities were placed under the authority of the Lord Steward. Thus the Lord Steward's Department gained increased financial and administrative responsibilities. Its officers met in

780-505: The Henry VIII legislation mentioned above. Since then, their function was to investigate the death of anyone whose body was lying "within the limits of any of the Queen's palaces; or within the limits of any other house where Her Majesty is then residing." If the coroner empanelled a jury to investigate the death, all members of the jury had to be chosen from among the members of the royal household. This led to some controversy concerning

832-470: The Household 'above stairs'). The sub-departments below stairs were mostly concerned with catering, including the royal kitchens and cellars , and various provisioning departments such as the buttery , spicery, confectionery, bakehouse , scalding house and so forth. Each was managed by its own staff of yeomen and grooms, and headed by a gentleman or sergeant; the Lord Steward exercised rights of patronage over these positions. Over time (particularly in

884-484: The Household (compiled in the early 1470s). In it he is described as having, under the King, the 'secondary estate and rule' of the Royal Household, which is 'wholly committed to be ruled and guided by his reason'. In 1540 the Lord Steward was redesignated Great Master of the King's Household by the King's Household Act 1540 ( 32 Hen. 8 . c. 39), but that office was discontinued and the office of Lord Steward revived by

936-517: The Lord Steward was always a member of the Government, and until 1782 the office had been one of considerable political importance and carried Cabinet rank . In the modern period, Lord Stewards (up to and including the Duke of Northumberland in 1973) were invariably made Privy Counsellors on appointment. Over time the domestic responsibilities of the office came increasingly to be carried out by

988-602: The Lord Steward, the Board consisted of the Treasurer, the Comptroller and the Master of the Household (all of which were sinecure positions in the 17th and 18th centuries), the Cofferer (who had executive financial and accounting responsibilities), and a number of clerks and clerk comptrollers (who, in consultation with the Lord Steward, managed the day-to-day running of the household below stairs). "...by which he

1040-637: The State Opening of Parliament, State Funerals and Coronations). Holders of the office are always peers , usually of or above the degree of an Earl . Each Lord Steward receives his appointment from the Sovereign in person and bears a white staff as the emblem and warrant of his authority. The incumbent Lord Steward (appointed in 2023) is the Earl of Rosslyn (who additionally serves as Personal Secretary to Their Majesties The King and Queen). Within

1092-709: The Verge of the King's Court [...]. At the Beginning of Parliaments he attends the King's Person, and administers the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy to the several Members of the House of Commons, and at the Ends of Parliaments, he adjudgeth the Parliamentary Expenses &c." The Lord Steward's developing role in government, however, led to increased absences from the Court, which (among other things) led to

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1144-402: The certificate" ( The Black Book of the Household , 1471-72). Until 1831, the Lord Steward or his deputies presided over the swearing of oaths by members of the House of Commons. (These oaths were sworn in the lobby of the house, or another convenient room designated for the purpose, and were the same as, but sworn separately from, the oaths taken in the chamber itself.) In the Tudor period he

1196-621: The coroner of the king's household, coroner of the Marshalsea, or coroner of the verge ..." There was a mention of the role in Law French by Bretton in 1290, " Et en noster hostel soit un Corouner, qi face le mester de la Coroune par mi la verge " (In our household let there be a Coroner to execute the business of the Crown throughout the verge) and a "William of Walden, coroner of the king's household" mentioned in 1333. A Robert of Hamond

1248-635: The counting-house where they sat at a green cloth-covered table, by which they came to be known as the Board of Green Cloth. The officers under the Lord Steward were listed in the 15th century as: the Treasurer of the Household and the Comptroller of the Household (both of whom would deputise for the Lord Steward in his absence), the Cofferer of the Household , two Clerks of the Green Cloth and

1300-432: The county had to join with the Coroner of the Verge; but, without the assistance of the latter officer, the Coroner of the county could not act within the Verge. So neither could the Coroner of the Verge act in such cases, unless he be associated with the Coroner of the county; and this had to appear upon the inquisition, or otherwise it would be erroneous and void." In other words, wherever an inquest needed to be held within

1352-560: The evidence collected by the criminal investigation to lawyers for Mohammed Al-Fayed to assist them in putting together their case in support of the conspiracy allegation for the inquest to begin in October 2007. On 15 May 2007, it was revealed by Baroness Butler-Sloss that the underlying material collected by the criminal investigation team ran to more than 11,000 pages when printed out and also consisted of more than 1,400 photographs, several DVDs, large-sized plans and other data. The material

1404-525: The evidence obtained point to the deaths of Diana and Fayed as being the result of an accident. The script for the 2007 television docudrama Diana: Last Days of a Princess borrowed heavily from testimony in the Paget report. Angela Gallop 's analysis of Diana's stomach contents proved to Operation Paget that Diana was not pregnant when she died. On 3 April 2007, the deputy coroner of the Queen's Household, Baroness Butler-Sloss , decided to grant access to

1456-460: The executive management of the Lord Steward's Department. Following Queen Victoria 's accession to the throne, her husband Prince Albert took a keen interest in reforming the Royal Household of its complexities and inefficiencies. In 1841 Baron Stockmar was commissioned to draw up a memorandum on the matter; he summed up the problem with the observation that even simple tasks were the responsibility of more than one master: 'the Lord Steward found

1508-470: The first year of the reign of King Richard I two individuals are named as his royal stewards (separate from the hereditary stewardship, which was vested jointly at that time in the Earldoms of Leicester and Norfolk ): The following are named as Steward in the 13th century (n.b. for most of the century two individuals served concurrently as Steward, and sometimes there were more; though records prior to

1560-545: The fuel and laid the fire, while the Lord Chamberlain lighted it'. As a result, towards the end of 1844, authority over the whole internal economy of the palace was conferred upon the Master of the Household, who became a permanent, resident officer. The titular heads (the Lord Steward, Lord Chamberlain and Master of the Horse) were retained, but their duties with regard to the Household were in this way delegated. Thus

1612-545: The holder of the hereditary office (the 5th Earl of Leicester ) resided in France, and after his death in 1218 the Earldom went into 'virtual abeyance' until Simon de Montfort had his claim to it confirmed in 1239. By that time it had become the norm to appoint separate Stewards of the Household to undertake the practical duties of the office (so de Montfort came to be referred to, by contrast, as 'Steward of all England'). For

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1664-516: The independence of the jury in the 2006 second inquest into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales . Section 46 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 abolished the office, effective 25 July 2013. Lord Steward The Lord Steward or Lord Steward of the Household is one of the three Great Officers of the Household of the British monarch . He is, by tradition, the first great officer of

1716-463: The late 18th and early 19th centuries) the number of sub-departments was significantly reduced as items began to be sourced from outside vendors. At the demise of the monarch the Lord Steward would break his white staff over the coffin, 'and thereby discharge all the Officers under his Jurisdiction'. "...they sit with him at the Board of Doom within the Household, that is, at the Green Cloth in

1768-558: The late Middle Ages. In 1727, the office of Lord Steward was described in the following terms: "To him is committed the State of the King's House, to be ordered and guided according to his Discretion: He hath Authority over all Officers and Servants of the King's House, except those of the Royal Chapel , Chamber , Stable , &c. He by Vertue of his Office judgeth of all Treasons, Murthers, Felonies and other Enormities committed within

1820-405: The office of Lord Steward came to be regarded as 'purely an honorary one'. In 1924, in line with these reforms, the Lord Steward's Department (Board of Green Cloth) was formally renamed the Master of the Household's Department (Board of Green Cloth). A few years earlier, in 1920, some residual executive and ceremonial duties had been transferred from the Lord Steward to the Lord Chamberlain. In

1872-688: The paparazzi. Contributing factors cited included "the impairment of the judgment of the driver of the Mercedes Henri Paul through alcohol" and that "the deceased was not wearing a seatbelt ". Coroner of the Queen%27s Household The Coroner of the King's/Queen's Household was an office of the Medical Household of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. It

1924-473: The rest of the 13th century there were normally two Stewards of the Household appointed, until 1292 when Walter de Beauchamp continued in office alone after his co-steward Peter de Champvent had been made Chamberlain . Since then every Steward of the Household has served singly. During the minority of King Richard II , the Crown assented to a proposal that the Chancellor and Treasurer of England,

1976-417: The same." This seems to imply that the joint responsibility applied only when the court moved between the time of the death and the inquest. And it does appear that the shared responsibility occurred less and less over the years. In an essay written in 1812, the anonymous author even felt able to write "The duty of the coroner of the verge is, although I believe now wholly disregarded, in deaths happening within

2028-573: The thirteenth century, no other coroner was allowed to act within the verge, with the result that many felonies were not presented to the justices in eyre after the king's court had moved on...", and Richard Clarke Sewell tells us that "Anciently the Coroner of the Verge had power to do all things within the Verge belonging to the office of the Coroner, to the exclusion of the Coroner of the County, but this clearly caused problems, which two acts were intended to solve." These two acts were, first, in 1300,

2080-424: The time being of the household of our Sovereign Lord the King or his heirs without any adjoining or assisting of another Coroner of any Shire within this Realm". In 1756, The Coroner's Guide was saying that "if a Murder be committed within the Verge, and the King removes before an Inquisition taken by The Coroner of the King's Household, the Coroner of the County and the Coroner of the King's House shall inquire of

2132-410: The verge it was to be presided over by the two coroners jointly. There was an exception to this, however, which was when an individual occupied both roles. Referring to a case in 1589, where one Richard Vale was both Coroner of the Queen's Household and one of the coroners for Middlesex, Sir Edward Coke reported that, despite Vale having presided alone where two coroners would have been expected, "it

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2184-439: The verge, to sit, jointly with the coroner of the county to take the inquisitions ... I should apprehend, therefore, that all inquests as they are now, I believe, taken by the coroner of the county singly, when the question should be discussed, will be held to be bad." The Coroners Act 1887 , section 29, therefore removed this requirement—in fact doing away with the idea of the verge altogether—and leaving only those parts of

2236-483: Was abolished in 2013. The office of Coroner of The King's or Queen's Household, reporting to the Lord Steward of the Household, dates back at least to the 13th century, and possibly even earlier, although not always given this exact name. As R. F. Hunnisett put it, "Another privileged area was peripatetic. This was the verge , which extended for twelve miles around the king's court. It had its own coroner, called

2288-407: Was an "Act for Murder and Malicious Bloodshed within the Court" ( 33 Hen. 8 . c. 12), concerning deaths within the precincts of the court itself. This stated "that all inquisitions upon the view of persons slain or hereafter to be slain within any of the King's said Palaces or houses or other house or houses aforesaid, shall be by authority of this Act had and taken hereafter for ever by the Coroner for

2340-597: Was assisted by the Knight Marshal and his men, by the Steward of the Marshalsea (always a qualified lawyer) and by the Coroner of the Verge . In the absence of the Lord Steward the Treasurer and Comptroller of the Household were empowered to sit as judges, along with the Steward of the Marshalsea; by the 19th century the latter had come to be, in practice, the only sitting judge of the court. The Marshalsea and Palace Courts were abolished in 1849. The Board of Green Cloth had its own jurisdiction, with powers to maintain

2392-418: Was described in 1480 as "coroner of the kynges houshold", and it is also recorded in legal Latin in 1593 as Coronatore hospicij dicte domine Regine , which Leslie Hotson translated as "Coroner of the household of our said lady the Queen" in his book on the death of the playwright Christopher Marlowe , inquired into by the Coroner of the Queen's Household, William Danby . According to Hunnisett, "during

2444-422: Was expected to cost at least £2 million. The cost of the inquiry eventually exceeded £12.5 million, with the coroner's inquest at £4.5 million, and a further £8 million spent on the Metropolitan Police investigation. The criminal investigation report's chapter titles are: Each chapter of the report concluded that all allegations made since the crash of conspiracy were without foundation and all

2496-406: Was legally necessary; once the inquest into the deaths got under way in the United Kingdom, it became apparent to the coroner that allegations were being made that a crime had taken place on UK soil: namely, conspiracy to murder. Coroners are legally obliged to refer to the police any information or evidence that comes before them concerning a suspected or actual crime. The basis of the investigation

2548-429: Was public statements made mainly by Dodi Fayed's father, Mohamed Al-Fayed . The investigation initially was confined to the general premise of the alleged conspiracy, but was eventually broadened to cover every associated allegation made through the media, in legal submissions, and in formal correspondence since the crash. The level of detail of the investigation is reflected in the report's length at 832 pages which took

2600-411: Was resolved that the indictment was well taken, for the intent and meaning of the act was performed, and the mischief recited in the act avoided as well when one person is coroner of the houshold (sic) , and of the county also, as if there should be two several persons." One other act, in 1541/2, had also sought to clarify the relationship between the coroners of the county and the royal household. This

2652-567: Was responsible for taking the roll call of all the Knights and Burgesses who had been elected to represent the Commons in Parliament, prior to each State Opening . By long tradition, the 'Lords with White Staves' are called upon if required to deliver messages between the House of Lords and the Sovereign. For some centuries the role of the Lord Steward remained much as it had been in

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2704-415: Was substantially disclosed to the interested persons and legal teams. The coroner's inquest opened on 2 October 2007, headed by Lord Justice Scott Baker . The opening statement mostly consisted of evidence and findings in the criminal investigation report. On 7 April 2008, the jury came to the verdict that Diana and Fayed were unlawfully killed as a result of "gross negligence" of the driver Henri Paul and

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