Lord Great Chamberlain in the context of "List of excepted hereditary peers"

The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest extant institutions in the world, its origins lie in the early 11th century and the emergence of bicameralism in the 13th century.

In contrast to the House of Commons, membership of the Lords is not generally acquired by election. Most members are appointed for life, on either a political or non-political basis. Hereditary membership was limited in 1999 to 92 excepted hereditary peers: 90 elected through internal by-elections, plus the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain as members ex officio, the sole two officers to directly inherit their seats. The House of Lords also includes up to 26 archbishops and bishops of the Church of England, known as Lords Spiritual. Since 2014, membership may be voluntarily relinquished or terminated upon expulsion.

Court appointments are the traditional positions within a royal, ducal, or noble household. In the early Middle Ages, when such households were established, most court officials had either domestic or military duties; the monarch's closest advisers were those who served in the household. However, as time went by, most of these positions became hereditary, and their role in the running of the household was gradually eroded. In England, for instance, the Lord Great Chamberlain and the Earl Marshal were originally responsible for the running of the royal household and the royal stables respectively; however, from the late medieval period onwards, their roles became largely honorary, their places in the household being taken by the Lord Chamberlain and the Master of the Horse.

Today, many court titles survive in those European nations that retain royal courts. Examples of court appointments would include:

In the United Kingdom, the Great Officers of State are traditional ministers of the Crown who either inherit their positions or are appointed to exercise certain largely ceremonial functions or to operate as members of the government. Separate Great Officers exist for England and Wales, Scotland, and formerly for the Kingdom of Ireland, though some exist for Great Britain and the United Kingdom as a whole.

Elections of the excepted hereditary peers were held in October and November 1999, before the House of Lords Act 1999 excluded most hereditary peers from the membership of the House of Lords allowing Earl Marshal, Lord Great Chamberlain and 90 others to remain in the House. Before the passing of the 1999 Act, the Lords approved a Standing Order stating that those 90 would consist of:

• 15 peers to be elected by the whole House
• 75 peers elected among and within party groupings:
  • 2 to be elected by the Labour hereditary peers
  • 42 to be elected by the Conservative hereditary peers
  • 3 to be elected by the Liberal Democrat hereditary peers
  • 28 to be elected by the Crossbench hereditary peers

The elections used a version of plurality block voting: voters were required to rank candidates in order of preference for the number of seats available, with the candidates receiving the greatest number of votes, without regard to the ranking on the ballots, declared elected. Preference order was only considered in the cases of ties.

The Lord High Constable of England is the seventh of the Great Officers of State, ranking beneath the Lord Great Chamberlain and above the Earl Marshal. This office is now called out of abeyance only for coronations. The Lord High Constable was originally the commander of the royal armies and the Master of the Horse. He was also, in conjunction with the Earl Marshal, president of the court of chivalry or court of honour. In feudal times, martial law was administered in the court of the Lord High Constable.

The constableship was granted as a grand serjeanty with the Earldom of Hereford by the Empress Matilda to Miles of Gloucester, and was carried by his heiress to the Bohuns, earls of Hereford and Essex. They had a surviving male heir, and still have heirs male, but due to the power of the monarchy the constableship was irregularly given to the Staffords, Dukes of Buckingham; and on the attainder of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham, in the reign of Henry VIII, it became merged into the Crown. Since that point it has not existed as a separate office, except as a temporary appointment for the coronation of a monarch or in the event of a trial by combat (albeit only one pro tempore appointment was made in such circumstances, in 1631, and the trial subsequently did not take place); in other circumstances the Earl Marshal exercises the traditional duties of the office.

The Lord Privy Seal (or, more formally, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal) is the fifth of the Great Officers of State in the United Kingdom, ranking beneath the Lord President of the Council and above the Lord Great Chamberlain. Originally, its holder was responsible for the monarch's personal (privy) seal (as opposed to the Great Seal of the Realm, which is in the care of the lord chancellor) until the use of such a seal became obsolete. Though one of the oldest offices in European governments, it has no particular function today because the use of a privy seal has been obsolete for centuries; it may be regarded as a traditional sinecure, but today, the holder of the office is invariably given a seat in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom, and is sometimes referred to as a minister without portfolio.

Since the premiership of Clement Attlee, the position of Lord Privy Seal has frequently been combined with that of leader of the House of Lords or leader of the House of Commons. The office of Lord Privy Seal, unlike those of leader of the Lords or Commons, is eligible for a ministerial salary under the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975. The office does not confer membership of the House of Lords, leading to Ernest Bevin's remark on holding this office that he was "neither a Lord, nor a Privy, nor a Seal".