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time to time be changed or limited by Parliament; under which limitations the crown still continues hereditary."

in the royal person; so the word successors, distinctly taken, must imply that this inheritance may sometimes be broken through, or that there may be a successor without being the heir of the King.

First, it is in general hereditary, or descendible to the next heir, on the death or demise of the last proprietor. All regal governments must be either hereditary or elective; and Fourthly, however the crown may be limited or transferred, as no instance can be found wherein the crown of England it still retains its descendible quality, and becomes hereditary has ever been asserted to be elective, by any authority but in the wearer of it. And hence, in our law, the King is said that of the regicides at the trial of King Charles I. it must never to die in his political capacity; because immediately of consequence be hereditary. Yet an hereditary by no upon the natural death of Henry, William, or Edward, the means intends a jure-divino right to the throne, save only so King survives in his successor. For the right of the crown far as kingdoms, like other human fabrics, are subject to the vests eo instanti upon his heir; either the hæres natus, if general and ordinary dispensations of Providence. Nor, the course of descent remains unimpeached, or the hæres indeed, have a jure-divino and an hereditary right any neces-factus, if the inheritance be under any particular settlement. sary connection with each other, as some have very weakly So that there can be no interregnum; but, as Hale observes, imagined. The hereditary right which the laws of England the right of sovereignty is fully invested in the successor by acknowledge, owes its origin to the founders of our Constitu- the very descent of the crown. 1 Hist. P. C. 61. Hence tion, and to them only. The founders of our English the statutes passed in the first year after the restoration of monarchy might perhaps, if they had thought proper, have Charles II. are always called the acts in the 12th year of his made it elective; but they rather chose, and upon good reign; and all the other legal proceedings of that reign are reason, to establish originally a succession by inheritance. reckoned from the year 1648, and not from 1660. This has been acquiesced in by general consent, and ripened by degrees into common law; the very same title that every private man has to his own estate. Lands are not naturally descendible any more than thrones; but the law has thought proper, for the benefit and peace of the public, to establish hereditary succession in the one as well as the other.

Secondly, as to the particular mode of inheritance, it in general corresponds with feodal path of descents, chalked out by the common law in the succession to landed estates, yet with one or two material exceptions. Like estates, the crown will descend lineally to the issue of the reigning monarch, as it did from King John to Richard II. through a regular degree of six lineal generations. As in common descents, the preference of males to females, and the right of primogeniture among the males, are strictly adhered to. But among the females the crown descends by right of primogeniture to the eldest daughter and her issue, and, not as in common inheritances, to all the daughters at once; the evident necessity of a sole succession to the throne having occasioned the royal law of descents to depart from the common law in this respect. The doctrine of representation also prevails in the descent of the crown, as it does in other inheritances, whereby the lineal descendants of any person deceased stand in the same place as their ancestor, if living, would have done. Lastly, on failure of lineal descendants, the crown goes to the next collateral relations of the late King, provided they are lineally descended from the bloodroyal; that is, from that royal stock which originally acquired the crown. But herein there is no objection (as in the case of common descents previous to the recent statute) to the succession of a brother, an uncle, or other collateral relation of the half blood; provided only, that the one ancestor, from whom both are descended, be that from whose veins the blood-royal is communicated to each. The reason of which diversity between royal and common descents may be understood by recurring to the general rules of descent at common law. See title Descent.

Thirdly, the doctrine of hereditary right does by no means imply an indefeasible right to the throne. No man will surely assert this who has considered our laws, constitution and history without prejudice, and with any degree of attention. It is unquestionably in the breast of the supreme legislative authority of this kingdom, the King and both Houses of Parliament, to defeat this hereditary right, and by particular entails, limitations, and provisions, to exclude the immediate heir, and vest the inheritance in any one else. This is strictly consonant to our laws and constitution, as may be gathered from the expression so frequently used in our statute-book of "the King's Majesty, his heirs and successors. In which we may observe, that as the word heirs necessarily implies an inheritance or hereditary right generally subsisting

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On this principle, that the King commences his reign from the day of the death of his ancestor, it hath been held that compassing his death before coronation, or even before proclamation, is compassing of the King's death within the statute of 25 Edw. 3. stat. 5. c. 2; he being King presently, and the proclamation and coronation only honourable ceremonies for the further notification thereof. 3 Inst. 7; 1 Hale's Hist. P. C. 101. See title Treason.

However acquired, therefore, the crown becomes in the successor absolutely hereditary; unless by the rules of the limitation it should be otherwise ordered and determined. In these four points consists the constitutional notion of hereditary right to the throne; which is further elucidated by the learned commentator, from whom much of the foregoing and following abstract is taken, in a short historical view which he gives of the succession to the crown of England, from Egbert to the present time; of the doctrines of our ancient lawyers, and of the several statutes that have from time to time been made to create, to declare, to confirm, to limit, or to bar, the hereditary title to the throne. In the pursuit of this inquiry, he states, that from the days of Egbert, the first sole monarch of this kingdom, to the present, the four cardinal maxims above mentioned have ever been held the constitutional canons of succession to the crown. It is true this succession, through fraud or force, or sometimes through necessity, when in hostile times the crown descended on a minor, or the like, has been very frequently suspended; but has generally at last returned back into the old hereditary channel, though sometimes a very considerable period has intervened. And even in those instances where the succession has been violated, the crown has ever been looked upon as hereditary in the wearer of it. Of which the usurpers themselves were so sensible, that they for the most part endeavoured to vamp up some feeble show of a title by descent, in order to amuse the people, while they gained the possession of the kingdom. And when possession was once gained, they considered it as the purchase or aquisition of a new estate of inheritance, and transmitted, or endeavoured to transmit, it to their own posterity, by a kind of hereditary right of usurpation. See 1 Comm. c. 3. p. 190-7. It is not very easy to say whether Mary and Elizabeth took the crown by inheritance or special parliamentary limitation. When the act 35 H. 8. c. 1. passed, they had both by a preceding act (28 H. 8. c. 7.) been declared illegitimate, and not capable of inheriting the crown. 35 H. 8. without repealing the former, limited the succession to them and the heirs of their bodies respectively, under certain circumstances, and upon certain conditions. On the accession of Mary the clauses of 28 H. 8. c. 7. by which her illegitimacy had been declared, were repealed (1 M. st. 2. c. 1.) and in 1 M. st. 3. c. 1. she is called the "inheritrix to the

The act

imperial crown," but the act 35 H. 8. c. 1. was not formally repealed. Elizabeth did not formally repeal the clauses of 28 H. 8. c. 7. which affected her legitimacy; but by 1 Eliz. c. 3. she was recognized as being lineally and lawfully descended of the blood royal of the realm; at the same time, however, the limitation of the crown by 35 H. 8. c. 1. was expressly confirmed. The inference from the whole seems to be, that though neither of them chose to rely on the parliamentary limitation alone, neither thought it right entirely to forego the security which it afforded. Coleridge's Note, 1 Comm. 195.

It may be worth while in this place to advert to the statement of an acute modern writer as to the succession of King James I. to the crown of England. See Hallam's Constitutional History of England, from Henry VII. to George II. vol. 1. cap. 6.

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interwoven by cunning and bigotry with religion, became a distinguishing tenet of the party who encouraged the Stuarts to subvert the liberties of the kingdom, In James's proclamation on ascending the throne he set forth his hereditary right in pompous and, perhaps, unconstitutional phrases. It was the first measure of Parliament to pass an act of recognition, acknowledging that on the decease of Elizabeth the imperial crown of the realm of England did by inherent birthright, and lawful and undoubted succession, descend and come to his most excellent Majesty, as being lineally, justly, and lawfully next and sole heir of the blood royal of this realm. Stat. 1 Jac. 1. c. 1. The will of Henry VIII. it was tacitly agreed by all parties to consign to oblivion! and this most wisely, not on the principles which seem rather too much insinuated in this act of recognition, but on such substantial motives of public expediency, as it would have shown an equal want of patriotism and of good sense, for the descendants of the House of Suffolk to have withstood.

If the throne be at any time vacant, (which may happen by other means besides that of abdication, as if all the blood-royal should fail, without any successor appointed by parliament,) the right of disposing of this vacancy seems naturally to result to the Houses of Lords and Commons, the trustees and representatives of the nation. For there are no other hands in which it can so properly be entrusted; and there is a necessity of its being entrusted somewhere, else the whole frame of government must be dissolved and perish. The preamble to the Bill of Rights expressly declares, that "the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons assembled at Westminster, lawfully, fully, and freely represent all the estates of the people of this realm." The Lords are not less the trustees and guardians of their country than the members of the House of Commons. It was justly said, when the royal prerogatives were suspended by the indisposition of the King (George III.) in 1788, that the two Houses of Parliament were the organs by which the people expressed their will. And in the House of Commons, on the 16th of December in that year, two declaratory resolutions were accordingly passed, importing: 1. The interruption of the royal authority; 2. That it was the duty of the two Houses of Parliament to provide the means of supplying that defect. On the 23d of the same month a third resolution was passed, empowering the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain to affix the great seal to such Bill of Limitations as might be necessary to restrict the power of the future Regent to be named by parliament: this bill was accordingly brought forward, but happily arrested in its progress by the providential recovery of the King in March, 1789. It is observable, however, that no bill was ever afterwards introduced to guard against a future emergency of a similar nature : grounds, undoubtedly, of delicacy to the monarch, in the hope of the improbability that such a circumstance should recur in future; and in the confidence of the omnipotence of parliament if necessarily called upon again. See the Journals of the Lords and Commons, sub an. 1788-9.

"The popular voice in favour of James was undoubtedly raised in consequence of a natural opinion that he was the lawful heir to the throne. But this was only according to vulgar notions of right which respect hereditary succession as something indefeasible. In point of fact, neither James nor any of his posterity were legitimate sovereigns according to the senses which that word ought properly to bear. The House of Stuart no more came in by a lawful title than the House of Brunswick; by such a title, I mean, as the constitution and established laws of this kingdom had recognised. No private man could have recovered an acre of land without proving a better right than they could make out to the crown of England. What then had James to rest upon? What renders it absurd to call him or his children usurpers? He had that which the flatterers of his family most affect to disdain, the will of the people; not certainly expressed in regular suffrage or declared election, but unanimously and voluntarily ratifying that which could in itself give no right, the determination of the council to proclaim his accession to the throne. It is probable (adds the writer) that what has been just said may appear paradoxical to those who have not considered this part of our history, yet it is capable of satisfactory proof. This proof consists of four propositions: 1. That a lawful King of England, with the advice and consent of Parliament, may make statutes to limit the inheritance of the crown as shall seem fit. 2. That a statute passed in the 35th of H. 8. (c. 1.) enabled that prince to dispose of the succession by his last will signed by his own hand. 3. That Henry did execute such will, by which in default of issue from his children the crown was entailed upon the descendants of his younger sister, Mary Duchess of Suffolk, before those of Margaret Queen of Scots. [Blackstone, however, affirms that this power of making a will was never carried into execution. 4. That such descendants of Mary were living at the decease of Elizabeth." The writer then proceeds to prove the four preceding propositions, and concludes thereon against the legal title of King James I. to the throne, and in favour of such right being vested in the descendants of the House of Suffolk. See also Luder's Essay on the Right of Succession to the Crown in the Reign of Elizabeth, who also supports the position as to the want of legal title in the House of Stuart.

Hallam concludes the subject by the following statement: "There is much reason to believe that the consciousness of this defect in his parliamentary title put James on magnifying, still more than from his natural temper he was prone to do, the internal rights of primogenitary succession as something indefeasible by the legislature; a doctrine which, however it might suit the schools of divinity, was in diametrical opposition to our statutes." [Bolingbroke, (the author adds, in a note,) was of this opinion, considering the act of recognition of James as the æra of hereditary right, and of all those exalted notions concerning the power of prerogative of kings and the sacredness of their persons.] "Through the servile spirit of those times, however, it made a rapid progress, and,

on the

Towards the end of King William's reign, the King and Parliament thought it necessary to exert their power of limiting and appoining the succession, in order to prevent the vacancy of the throne; which must have ensued upon their deaths, as no farther provision was made at the Revolution than for the issue of Queen Mary, Queen Anne, and King William. It had been previously, by the stat. 1 W. & M. stat. 2. c. 2. enacted, that every person who should be reconciled to, or hold communion with, the See of Rome, who should profess the Popish religion, or who should marry a Papist, should be excluded, and for ever incapable to inherit, possess, or enjoy the crown; and that in such case the people should be absolved from their allegiance [to such person], and the crown should descend to such persons, being Protestants, as would have inherited the same in case the person so reconciled, holding communion, professing, or

marrying, were naturally dead. To act, therefore, consistently with themselves, and at the same time pay as much regard to the old hereditary line as their former resolutions would admit, they turned their eyes on the Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover. For upon the impending extinction of the Protestant posterity of Charles I. the old law of regal descent directed them to recur to the descendants of James I.; and the Princess Sophia being the youngest daughter of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, who was the daughter of James I. was the nearest of the ancient bloodroyal, who was not incapacitated by professing the Popish religion. On her, therefore, and the heirs of her body, being Protestants, the remainder of the crown, expectant on the death of King William and Queen Anne, without issue, was settled by stat. 12 & 13 W. 3. c. 2. See also 4 & 5 Ann. c. 4. by which the Princess Sophia and her future issue were naturalized.

This is the last limitation of the crown that has been made by parliament, and all the several actual limitations from the time of Henry IV. to the present, (stated at large in 1 Comm. c. 3.) do clearly prove the power of the King and Parliament to new model or alter the succession. And, indeed, it is now again made highly penal to dispute it; for by stat. 6 Ann. c. 7. it is enacted, that if any person maliciously, advisedly, and directly, shall maintain by writing, or printing, that the Kings of this realm, with the authority of Parliament, are not able to make laws to bind the crown, and the descent thereof, he shall be guilty of high treason; or if he maintains the same only by preaching, teaching, or advised speaking, he shall incur the penalties of a præmunire.

The Princess Sophia dying before Queen Anne, the inheritance thus limited descended on her son King George I., and having taken effect in his person, from him it descended to King George II., from him to his grandson and heir, King George III., from him to his son King George IV., and on the death of the latter to our present sovereign William IV.

The title to the crown therefore, though at present hereditary, is not quite so absolutely hereditary as formerly; and the common stock or ancestor, from whom the descent must be derived, is also different. Formerly the common stock was King Egbert, then William the Conqueror; afterwards, in James I.'s time, the two common stocks united, and so continued till the vacancy of the throne, occasioned by the abdication of James II. in 1688: now it is the Princess Sophia, in whom the inheritance was vested by the King and parliament. Formerly the descent was absolute, and the crown went to the next heir without any restriction; but now, upon the new settlement, the inheritance is conditional; being limited to such heirs only of the body of the Princess Sophia, as are Protestant members of the Church of England, and are

married to none but Protestants.

In these heirs of the Princess Sophia, (to use, with some modification, the expressions of a modern historian, already quoted in the course of this article,) the right to the crown is as truly hereditary as it ever was in the Plantagenets and the Tudors. But they derive it not from those ancient families. The blood, indeed, of Cerdic, and of the Conqueror, flows in the veins of his present Majesty. Our Edwards and Henrys illustrate the almost unrivalled splendour and antiquity of the House of Brunswick. But they have transmitted no more right to the allegiance of England than Boniface of Este, or Henry the Lion. That right rests wholly on the Act of Settlement, and resolves itself into the sovereignty of the legislature. We have, therefore, an abundant security that no prince of the House of Brunswick will ever countenance the silly theories of imprescriptible hereditary right, which flattery and superstition seem still to render current in other countries. He would brand his own brow with the names of upstart and usurper. For the history of the Revolution, and that change in the succession which ensued upon it, will, for ages to come, be as fresh and familiar

as the recollections of yesterday. And if the people's claim be, as surely it is, the primary foundation of magistracy, it is perhaps more honourable to be nearer the source, than to deduce a title through a series not free from some whose vices or deficiencies may have sullied the splendour of their descent.

The Bill of Rights was reckoned hasty and defective, some matters of great importance had been omitted, and in the period which elapsed from the passing of that statute to the Act of Settlement, new abuses had called for new remedies. It was, therefore, determined to accompany that settlement with additional securities for the subject's liberty, and eight articles were inserted in the act, to take effect only from the commencement of the new limitation to the House of Hanover. Some of them appeared to spring from a natural jealousy of the unknown and foreign line; some should not strictly have been postponed so long, but it is necessary to be content with what it is practicable to maintain. These articles were: 1. That whoever should hereafter come to the possession of the crown should join in communion with the Church of England as by law established. 2. That in case the crown should come to any person not being a native of the kingdom, the nation should not be obliged to engage in any war for the defence of any dominions or territories, which do not belong to the crown of England, without the consent of parliament. 3. That no person who should hereafter come to the possession of the crown should go out of the dominions of England, Scotland, or Ireland, without consent of parliament. [This article was repealed by stat. 1 Geo. 1. c. 51.] 4. That all matters relating to government cognizable by the Privy Council should be transacted there, and all resolutions taken thereon should be signed by the privy councillors advising and consenting to the same. [This provision was repealed by stat. 4 Ann. c. 8. and see 6 Ann. c. 7. and tit. Privy Council.] 5. That no person born out of the kingdom of England, Scotland, or Ireland, or the dominions thereunto belonging, (although he be naturalized or made a denizen,) except such as are born of English parents, shall be capable of being of the Privy Council, or a member of either House of Parliament, or to enjoy any office or place of trust, either civil or military, or to have any grant of lands or tenements from the crown to himself, or any others in trust for him. [By 1 Geo. 1. stat. 2. c. 4. it is enacted, that no bill of nauralization shall be received without a clause disqualifying the party to sit in Parliament.] 6. That no person having an office or place of trust or profit under the king, or receiving a provision from the crown, shall be capable of serving as a member of the House of Commons. [This has been repealed and otherwise provided for. See tit. Parliament.] 7. That judges' commissions be made quam diu se bene gesserint, and their salaries ascertained and established; but upon the address of both Houses of Parliament it shall be lawful to remove them. [See tit. Judges.] 8. That no pardon under the great seal of England be pleadable to an impeachment by the Commons in Parliament. [See tit. Impeachment.] As to offences in denying the King's title, see this Dict. tit. Misprision; in oppugning it, tit. Treason.

II. The first and most considerable branch of the King's royal family, regarded by the laws of England, is the Queen; as to whom see this Dict. tit. Queen.

The Prince of Wales, or heir-apparent to the crown, and also his royal consort; and the Princess Royal, or eldest daughter of the King, are likewise peculiarly regarded by the laws. For, by stat. 25 Edw. 3. to compass or conspire the death of the former, or to violate the chastity of the latter, is as much high treason as to conspire the death of the King, or violate the chastity of the Queen. See this Dictionary, tit. Treason. The heir-apparent to the crown is usually made Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, by special creation and investiture; but being the King's eldest son, he is by inherit

ance Duke of Cornwall, without any new creation. 8 Rep. | to Sir E.. Coke's interpretation of nephew; and, therefore, 1; Seld. tit. Lon. 2, 5.

The observations in Coke's reports, however, as well as the words of the statute, it has been remarked, limit the dukedom of Cornwall to the first begotten son of a King of England, and to him only. But although from this it is manifest that a Duke of Cornwall must be the first begotten son of a King, yet it is not necessary that he should be born after his father's accession to the throne.

This is, on the whole, a strange species of inheritance, and perhaps is the only mode of descent which depends upon the authority of a statute. In the Prince's Case, reported by Lord Coke, the question was, whether the original grant to Edward the Black Prince, who was created in the 11th of Edw. 3. Duke of Cornwall, and who was the first duke in England after the Duke of Normandy, had the authority of parliament; or was an honour conferred by the King's charter alone? If the latter, the limitation would have been void, as nothing less than the power of Parliament can alter the established rules of descent. But notwithstanding it is in the form of a charter, it was held to be an act of the legislature. It concludes, per ipsum regem et totum concilium in parliamento. Christian's Note on 1 Comm. c. 4. (See printed Parliament Rolls, 5 H. 4. nu. 22. and 38 H. 6. nu. 29. for full information on this subject. See also this Dictionary, tit. Prince.)

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The rest of the royal family may be considered in two different lights, according to the different senses in which the term royal family is used. The larger sense includes all those, who are by any possibility inheritable to the crown. Such, before the Revolution, were all the descendants of William the Conqueror, who had branched into an amazing extent by intermarriages with the ancient nobility. Since the Revolution and Act of Settlement, it means the Protestant issue of the Princess Sophia, now comparatively few in number, but which in process of time may possibly be as largely diffused. The more confined sense includes only those who are within a certain degree of propinquity to the reigning prince, and to whom, therefore, the laws pay an extraordinary regard and respect.

At the time of passing the Regency Act, stat. 5 G. 3. c. 27. (see post, V. 2,) the bill, which was framed on the plan of the Regency Act in the preceding reign, empowered his Majesty to appoint either the Queen, or any other person of his royal family usually resident in Great Britain, to be Regent until the successor to the crown should attain eighteen years of age. A doubt arising on the question who were the royal family, it was explained by the law lords to be the descendants of King George II. It was, therefore, found necessary expressly to insert in the act the name of her Royal Highness the Princess Dowager of Wales, widow of the King's eldest son deceased, and mother of King George III. as she was not held to be comprehended under the general description of the royal family. See Belsham's Memoirs of King George III.

The

younger sons and daughters of the King, and other branches of the royal family, who are not in the immediate line of succession, were, therefore, little farther regarded by the ancient law than to give them a certain degree of precedence before all persons and public officers, as well ecclesiastical as temporal. This is done by stat. 31 Hen. 8. c. 10. which enacts, that no person, except the King's children, shall presume to sit or have place at the side of the cloth of estate in the parliament chamber; and that certain great officers therein named shall have precedence above all dukes, except only such as shall happen to be the King's son, brother, uncle, nephew, (which latter Sir E. Coke, 4 Inst. 362, explains to signify grandson or nepos,) or brother's or sister's

son.

Indeed, under the description of the King's children, his grandsons are held to be included, without having recourse

when his late Majesty King George II. created his grandson Edward (the second son of Frederick Prince of Wales, deceased,) Duke of York, and referred it to the House of Lords to settle his place and precedence, they certified that he ought to have place next to the late Duke of Cumberland, the then King's youngest son; and that he might have a seat on the left hand of the cloth of estate. Lds'. Journ. Ap. 24, 1760. But when, on the accession of King George III. those royal personages ceased to take place as the children, and ranked only as the brother and uncle of the King, they also left their seats on the side of the cloth of estate; so that when the Duke of Gloucester, his Majesty's second brother, took his seat in the House of Peers, he was placed on the upper end of the earl's bench, (on which the dukes usually sit,) next to his Royal Highness the Duke of York. Journ. 10 Jan. 1765. And in 1718, upon a question referred to all the judges by King George I. it was resolved by ten against the other two, that the education and care of all the King's grand-children, while minors, did belong of right to his Majesty as King of this realm, even during their father's life. Fortesc. Al. 401-440. And they all agreed, that the care and approbation of their marriages, when grown up, belonged to the King, their grandfather. And the judges have more recently concurred in opinion, that this care and approbation extend also to the presumptive heir of the crown; though to what other branches of the royal family the same did extend, they did not find precisely determined. Lds'. Journ. 28th Feb. 1772; 11 St. Tr. 295. The most frequent instances of the crown's interposition go no farther than nephews and nieces, but examples are not wanting of its reaching to distant collaterals. Therefore, by stat. 28 H. 8. c. 18. (repealed among other statutes of treason by 1 Ed. 6. c. 12.) it was made high treason for any man to contract marriage with the King's children, or reputed children, his sisters or aunts, ex parte paterna, or the children of his brethren or sister; being exactly the same degrees to which precedence is allowed by the stat. 31 H. 8. before mentioned. And now by stat. 12 G. 3. c. 11. no descendant of the body of King George II. (other than the issue of princesses married into foreign countries,) is capable of contracting matrimony, without the previous consent of the King signified under the great seal; and any marriage contracted without such consent is void: but it is provided by the act, that such of the said descendants as are above the age of twenty-five, may, after a twelvemonth's notice given to the King's Privy Council, contract and solemnize marriage without the consent of the crown; unless both Houses of Parliament shall, before the expiration of the said year, expressly declare their disapprobation of such intended marriage. All persons solemnizing, assisting, or being present at any such prohibited marriage shall incur the penalties of pramunire.

In 1793 a marriage was solemnized at Rome, according to the forms, and by a minister, of the church of England, between his Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex and Lady Augusta Murray, daughter of the Earl of Dunmore, who, on their return to England, were re-married at St. George's, Hanover Square. The second marriage attracted the notice of George III., and at his instigation a suit was commenced in the Court of Arches, and a decree pronounced in 1794 declaring both marriages void. A bill for perpetuating the evidence of the first marriage has lately been filed in the Court of Chancery by Sir Augustus d'Este and his sister, the children of his Royal Highness by the above lady. For further particulars concerning the claim of Sir Augustus d'Este, see Law Mag. vol. vii. 176.

III. In order to assist the King in the discharge of his duties, the maintenance of his dignity, and the exertion of his prerogative, the law hath assigned him a diversity of councils to advise with. These are, his Parliament, his Peers,

and his Privy Council. See this Dictionary under those titles.

For law matters the judges of the courts of law are held to be the King's council, as appears frequently in our statutes, particularly the 14 Edw. 3. c. 5. and in other books of law. So that when the King's council is mentioned generally, it must be defined, particularized, and understood, secundum subjectam materiam; and if the subject be of a legal nature, then by the King's council is understood his council for matters of law, namely, his judges. Therefore, when by the 16 R. 2. c. 5. it was made a high offence to import into this kingdom any Papal bulls, or other processes from Rome; and it was enacted, that the offenders should be attached by their bodies, and brought before the King and bis council to answer for such their offence; here, by the expression of the King's council were understood the King's judges of his courts of justice, the subject matter being legal; this being the general way of interpreting the word council, 3 Inst. 125. See further title Judges.

Upon the same principle, in cases where fine and ransom is imposed for any offence at the King's pleasure, this does not signify any extra-judicial will of the sovereign, but such as is declared by his representatives, the judges in his courts of justice, voluntas regis in curia, non in camera. 1 Hal. P. C.

375.

IV. It is in consideration of the duties incumbent on the King by our constitution that his dignity and prerogative are established by the laws of the land; it being a maxim in the law, that protection and subjection are reciprocal. 7 Rep. 5. And these reciprocal duties are most probably what was meant by the Convention Parliament in 1688, when they declared that King James II. had broken the original contract between king and people. But, however, as the terms of that original contract were in some measure disputed, being alleged to exist principally in theory, and to be only deducible by reason and the rules of natural law, in which deduction different understandings might very considerably differ; it was, after the Revolution, judged proper to declare these duties expressly, and to reduce that contract to a plain certainty. So that whatever doubts might be formerly raised about the existence of such an original contract, they must now entirely cease; especially with regard to every prince who hath reigned since the year 1688.

The principal duty of the King is to govern his people according to law. And this is not only consonant to the principles of nature, reason, liberty, and society, but has always been esteemed an express part of the common law of England, even when prerogative was at the highest. See our ancient authors, Bract. l. 1. c. 8: l. 2. c. 16. § 3: Fortesc. cc. 2, 34. But to obviate all doubts and difficulties concerning this matter, it is expressly declared by stat. 12 & 13 W. 3. c. 2. "That the laws of England are the birthright of the people thereof; and all the Kings and Queens who shall ascend the throne of this realm ought to administer the government of the same according to the said laws; and all their officers and ministers ought to serve them respectively according to the same; and therefore all the laws and statutes of this realm for securing the established religion, and the rights and liberties of the people thereof, and all other laws and statutes of the same now in force, are ratified and confirmed accordingly." See further tit. Liberties.

As to the terms of the original contract between King and people, these it seems are now couched in the Coronation Oath, which by stat. 1 W. & M. st. 1. c. 6. is to be administered to every King and Queen who shall succeed to the imperial crown of these realms, by one of the archbishops or bishops in the presence of all the people; who, on their parts, do reciprocally take the oath of allegiance to the

crown.

This Coronation Oath is conceived in the following terms:

"The Archbishop or Bishop shall say, Will you solemnly promise and swear to govern the people of this [kingdom of England,- -see now stat. 5 Ann. c. 8. § 1. as to the union of Scotland, and 39 & 40 G. 3. c. 67. as to the union of Ireland, and which together is called 'the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,'] and the dominions thereto belonging, according to the statutes in Parliament agreed on: and the laws and customs of the same? The King or Queen shall say, I solemnly promise so to do.-Abp. or Bp. Will you to your power cause law and justice, in mercy, to be executed in all your judgments? K. or Q. I will.-Abp. or Bp. Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the laws of God, the true profession of the Gospel, and the Protestant reformed religion established by the law; and will you preserve unto the bishops and the clergy of this realm, and to the churches committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain unto them or any of them? K. or Q. All this I promise to do. After this the King or Queen, laying his or her hand upon the Holy Gospels, shall say: The things which I have here before promised I will perform and keep; so help me God. And then shall kiss the book."

It is also required, both by the Bill of Rights, 1 W. & M. st. 2. c. 2. and the Act of Settlement, 12 & 13 W. 3. c. 2. that every King and Queen of the age of twelve years, either at their coronation or on the first day of the first parliament upon the throne in the House of Peers (which shall first happen), shall repeat and subscribe the declaration against Popery, according to the 30 Car. 2. st. 2. c. 1.

The foregoing is the form of the Coronation Oath, as it is now prescribed by our laws; the principal articles of which appear to be at least as ancient as the Mirror of Justices (c. 1. §2.) and even as the time of Bracton. See l. 3. tr. 1. c. 9. But the wording of it was changed at the Revolution, because (as the statute alleges) the oath itself had been framed in doubtful words and expressions with relation to ancient laws and constitutions at this time unknown. For these old coronation oaths, see 1 Comm. c. 6. p. 235, in n.; and Rot. Claus. 1 Edw. 2. In a roll of 5 Edw. 2. preserved in Canterbury cathedral, marked K. 11. is the form of the Coronation Oath si Rex fuerit literatus in Latin, and si Rex non fuerit literatus in French, as required to be administered by the Archbishop of Canterbury, "ad quem de jure & consuetudine Ecclesiæ Cant' antiqua & approbata pertinet Regis Angliæ inungere & coronare.

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However, in what form soever this oath be conceived, it is most indisputably a fundamental and express original contract; though doubtless the duty of protection is impliedly as much incumbent on the sovereign before coronation as after; in the same manner as allegiance to the King becomes the duty of the subject immediately on the descent of the crown, before he has taken the oath of allegiance, or whether he ever takes it at all. In the King's part of this original contract are expressed all the duties that a monarch can owe to his people, viz. to govern according to law; to execute judgment in mercy; and to maintain the established religion. And with respect to the latter of these three branches, the Act of Union, 5 Ann. c. 8. recites and confirms two preceding statutes; the one of the Parliament of Scotland, the other of the Parliament of England; which enact, the former, that every King, at his accession, shall take and subscribe an oath to preserve the Protestant religion, and Presbyterian church government in Scotland; the latter, that at his coronation he shall take and subscribe a smilar oath to preserve the settlement of the church of England within England, Ireland, Wales and Berwick, and the territories thereunto belonging. The 39 & 40 G. 3. c. 67. for the union of Great Britain and Ireland, recognizes and confirms this part of the act for the Union with Scotland. See article V. of the Union with Ireland, and this Dict. title Ireland. See also the act of the Irish Parliament, 33 H. 8. c. 1. by which it is

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