James might at any time have, which was totally omitted, through fear of a popish succession. And this order of succession took effect accordingly. These three princes therefore, King William, Queen Mary, and Queen Anne, did not take the crown by hereditary right or descent, but by way of donation or purchase, as the lawyers call it; by which they mean any method of acquiring an estate otherwise than by descent.

Towards the end of King William's reign, when all hopes of any surviving issue from any of these princes died with the Duke of Gloucester, the king and parliament thought it necessary again to exert their power of limiting and appointing the succession, in order to prevent another vacancy of the throne, which must have ensued upon their deaths, as no further provision was made at the Revolution, than for the issue of Queen Mary, Queen Anne, and King William. The parliament had previously excluded from the crown every person who should be reconciled to, or hold communion with, the see of Rome. 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, the youngest daughter of Elizabeth Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I., nearest of the ancient blood royal 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; and at the same time it was enacted that whosoever should hereafter come to the possession of the crown should join in the communion of the Church of England as by law estab⚫lished.

This is the last limitation of the crown that has been made by parliament. The Princess Sophia dying before Queen Anne, the inheritance thus limited descended on her son and heir George I., and having on the death of the queen taken effect in his person, from him it descended to George II.; and from him to his grandson and heir, George III. From him again it descended to his eldest son, George IV., who dying without issue was succeeded by William IV., the third son of George III.; the second son Frederick Augustus, Duke of York, having previously died without issue. On the death of William IV., the inheritance descended to the only child of Edward Duke of Kent, the fourth son of George III., our present Sovereign Queen Victoria.

Hence it is easy to collect, that the title to the crown is at present hereditary, though not quite so absolutely hereditary as it formerly The descent was formerly absolute, and the crown went to

was.

D

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. And in this due medium consists, I apprehend, the true constitutional notion of the right of succession to the imperial crown of these kingdoms. It was the duty of an expounder of our laws to lay this constitution before the student in its true and genuine light: it is the duty of every good Englishman to understand and to defend it.

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE ROYAL FAMILY.

The Queen Consort-Dowager-The Prince of Wales.

THE first and most considerable branch of the royal family, regarded by the laws of England (supposing the sovereign to be a king) is the queen.

The queen is either regent, consort, or dowager. The queen regent, or sovereign, holds the crown in her own right; and has the same powers, prerogatives, and duties as a king. The queen consort is the wife of the reigning king; and she is participant of divers prerogatives above other women.

She is a public person, distinct from the king. She may purchase and convey lands, and do other acts of ownership, without the concurrence of her lord. She is also capable of taking a grant from the king, which no other wife is from her husband. She has separate courts and offices distinct from the king's, not only in matters of ceremony, but even of law; and her attorney and solicitor general are entitled to a place within the bar. She may sue and be sued alone, and may have a separate property in goods as well as lands, and has a right to dispose of them by will.

She has also some pecuniary advantages, which form her distinct revenue. This before and after the conquest consisted in certain rents out of the demesne lands of the crown, which were frequently appropriated to particular purposes: as to buy wool for her Majesty's use, to purchase oil for her lamps, or to furnish her attire from head to foot.

Another ancient perquisite belonging to the queen consort, mentioned by all our old writers, and therefore only worthy of notice, is

this: that on the taking of a whale on the coasts, which is a royal fish, it shall be divided between the king and queen; the head only being the king's property, and the tail of it the queen's. "De stur"gione observetur, quod rex illum habebit integrum: de balena vero "sufficit si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam." The reason of this whimsical division was to furnish the queen's wardrobe with whalebone, a reason more whimsical than the division itself.

But further: though the queen is in all respects a subject, yet, in point of the security of her life and person, she is put on the same footing with the king. It is equally treason to compass or imagine the death of our lady the king's companion, as of the king himself: and to violate, or defile the queen consort, amounts to the same high crime; as well in the person committing the fact, as in the queen herself, if consenting. If, however, the queen be accused of any species of treason, she shall (whether consort or dowager) be tried by the peers of parliament, as queen Ann Boleyn was in 28 Henry VIII.

The husband of a queen regnant is her subject; and may be guilty of high treason against her: but in the instance of conjugal infidelity, he is, for obvious reasons, not subjected to the same penal restrictions.

A queen dowager is the widow of the king, and as such enjoys most of the privileges belonging to her as queen consort. But it is not high treason to conspire her death, or to violate her chastity, because the succession to the crown is not thereby endangered. Yet still, no man can marry a queen dowager without special licence from the sovereign, on pain of forfeiting his lands and goods; and a queen dowager, when married again to a subject, does not lose her regal dignity as peeresses dowager (when commoners by birth) do their peerage, when they marry commoners.

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. To compass the death of the former, or to violate the chastity of either of the latter, are as much high treason as to conspire the death of the king, or violate the chastity of the queen. 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 inheritance Duke of Cornwall, without any new creation.

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; which, since the Act of Settle

ment, means the Protestant issue of the Princess Sophia. The more confined sense includes only those who are in a certain degree of propinquity to the reigning prince, and to whom, therefore, the law. pays an extraordinary regard and respect.

Their education while minors, and the approbation of their marriages, when grown up, belongs of right to the king; a rule applying to the grandchildren as well as children of the sovereign. Indeed, no descendant of King George II. (other than the issue of princesses married into foreign families) is capable of contracting matrimony, without the previous consent of the sovereign signified under the great seal; and any marriage contracted without such consent is void. But as this consent might be arbitrarily withheld, any of the said descendants who is above the age of twenty-five, may, after twelve months' notice to the privy council, contract marriage without the consent of the crown, unless both houses of parliament shall, before the expiration of the year, expressly declare their disappro bation of such intended marriage.

CHAPTER V.

OF THE ROYAL COUNCILS.

Parliament The Peers-The Privy Council-Its executive and legislative duties-The Judicial Committee.

To assist the sovereign in the discharge of his duties, the maintenance of his dignity, and the exertion of his prerogative, the law has assigned him a diversity of councils to advise with..

1. The first of these is the high court of parliament, whereof we have already treated at large..

2. Secondly, the peers of the realm are by their birth hereditary counsellors of the crown. They are created for two reasons: 1. Ad consulendum; 2. Ad defendendum, regem: on which account the law gives them certain great and high privileges; such as freedom from arrest, &c., even when no parliament is sitting; because it intends that they are always assisting the sovereign with their counsel for the commonwealth, or keeping the realm in safety by their prowess and valour.

Instances of conventions of the peers, to advise the crown, have been in former times very frequent, though now fallen into disuse by reason of the more regular meetings of parliament. Indeed, the formal method of convoking them had been so long left off, that

when Charles I., in 1640, issued writs to call a great council of the peers to meet at York, the Earl of Clarendon mentions it as a new invention, not before heard of. Besides this general meeting, it is usually looked upon to be the right of each particular peer to demand an audience, and to lay before the king such matters as he shall judge of importance to the public weal. And therefore, in the reign of Edward II., it was made an article of impeachment against the two Spencers, for which they were banished, that they would not suffer the great men of the realm to speak with the king, or to come near him.

3. But the principal council belonging to the sovereign is the privy council, generally called by way of eminence, The Council; a noble, honourable, and reverend assembly of the sovereign and such as he wills to be of his privy council, for the sovereign's will is the sole constituent of a privy councillor, and this also regulates their number, which is indefinite. This assembly is presided over by the lord president of the council, who has precedence next after the lord chancellor and lord treasurer.

The duty of a privy councillor appears from the oath of office, which consists of seven articles: 1. To advise the king according to the best of his cunning and discretion. 2. To advise for the king's honour and good of the public, without partiality through affection, love, meed, doubt, or dread. 3. To keep the king's counsel secret. 4. To avoid corruption. 5. To help and strengthen the execution of what shall be there resolved. 6. To withstand all persons who would attempt the contrary. And lastly, in general, 7. To observe, keep, and do all that a good and true councillor ought to do to his sovereign lord.

The office of a privy councillor is now confined to advising the sovereign in the discharge of those executive, legislative, and judicial duties which the constitution has reposed in him. The former have, since the accession of Queen Anne, been entrusted to responsible ministers; and it has consequently become the settled practice to summon to the meetings of the council those members of it only, who, for the time being, hold the reins of government, or, in other words, are the ministers of the crown.

The legislative functions which remain in the privy council are now solely exercised with reference to the colonies and other dependencies of the crown, over which the authority of the sovereign in council is more or less extensive. In the Channel Islands it is said to be absolute; but in modern times the legislation for these islands has generally been by act of parliament. Laws and ordinances are,' however, made in the privy council for those colonies and settle