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 was abolished in 2013.
History
The title
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 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 was described in 1480 as "coroner of the kynges houshold", and we also have it 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.
Shared responsibility
According to Hunnisett, "during 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 (28 Edward I c.3, s.2.) the Articuli super cartas (Articles upon the charters), which said "...it is ordained, that from henceforth in cases of the death of men, whereof the Coroner's Office is to make view and Enquest, it shall be commanded to the Coroner of the County, that he, with the Coroner of the (King's) House, shall do as belongeth to his office and inroll it." Second, in 1311 (5 Edward II C.27.) there were the "New ordinances", which said "... We do ordain, that from henceforth in case of homicide, whereof the Coroner's office is to make view and Inquest, it shall be commanded to the Coroner of the Country or of the Franchises where the dead persons shall be found, that he, together with the Coroner of the Household do execute the office which thereunto pertaineth, and shall enter it in his Roll..."
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 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 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 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."