the sovereign,-abjures any obedience or allegiance to any other person,—and declares that no foreign prince, prelate, or potentate has or ought to have any jurisdiction or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within the realm. This oath may be tendered by two justices of the peace to any person whom they shall suspect of disaffection; and to all persons above the age of twelve years, whether natives, denizens, or aliens, either in the court-leet of the manor, or in the sheriff's tourn, which is the court-leet of the county. The tolerant spirit of modern legislation has also provided particular forms of oaths for Roman Catholics and Jews; has permitted affirmations to be made by persons who object to take an oath; and has otherwise greatly relieved the queen's subjects generally from the penalties and disabilities consequent on the neglect or refusal to take the oaths.

But besides these express engagements, the law also holds that there is an implied, original, and virtual allegiance, owing from every subject to his sovereign, antecedently to any express promise; and although the subject never swore any faith or allegiance in form. For as the king, by the very descent of the crown, is fully invested with all the rights, and bound to all the duties of sovereignty, before his coronation; so the subject is bound to his prince by an intrinsic allegiance, before the superinduction of those outward bonds of oath, homage, and fealty.

Allegiance is consequently distinguished into two species, the one natural, the other local; the former being also perpetual, the latter temporary. Natural allegiance is such as is due from all men born within the sovereign's dominions immediately upon their birth; it cannot be forfeited, cancelled, or altered by any change of time, place, or circumstance, nor by anything but the united concurrence of the legislature.

Local allegiance is such as is due from an alien, or stranger born, for so long time as he continues within the queen's dominions and protection; and it ceases the instant such stranger transfers himself from this kingdom to another. For as the prince affords his protection to an alien only during his residence in this realm, the allegiance of an alien is confined to the duration of his residence, and to the dominions of the empire.

Allegiance then, natural or local, is the duty of all the queen's subjects, whose rights are also distinguishable by the same criterions of time and locality. Natural-born subjects have, as we have seen already, a great variety of rights, which they acquire by being born within the queen's legiance; aliens possess also certain rights, though

much more circumscribed, being acquired only by residence here, and lost whenever they remove.

An alien born may purchase lands or other estates; but not for his own use: for the crown is thereupon entitled to them. If an alien could acquire a permanent property in lands, he must owe an allegiance, equally permanent with that property, to the crown of England; which would be inconsistent with that which he owes to his own natural liege lord. Yet an alien may, at common law, acquire a property in goods, money, and other personal estate, or may hire a house for his habitation: for personal estate is of a transitory and movable nature. This indulgence to strangers is, indeed, necessary for the advancement of trade; for aliens may trade as freely as other people; and an alien may bring an action concerning personal property, and may make a will, and dispose of his personal estate. I speak of alien friends only, or such whose countries are in peace with ours; for alien enemies have no rights, no privileges, unless by the special favour of the crown, or express legislative enactment, during the time of war.

When I say that an alien is one who is born out of the sovereign's dominions, or allegiance, this also must be understood with some restrictions. The children of ambassadors born abroad are natural subjects; and by several modern statutes all children whose fathers (or grandfathers by the father's side) were natural-born subjects, are now deemed to be natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes.*

The children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such. A denizen is an alien born, but who has obtained ex donatione legis letters-patent to make him an English subject. He may take lands by purchase or devise, which an alien may not; but he cannot take by inheritance: for his parent, being an alien, had no inheritable blood, and therefore could convey none to the son.

Naturalization, properly so called, cannot be performed but by act of parliament: for by this an alien is put in exactly the same state as if he had been born in the king's legiance; except only that he is incapable, as well as a denizen, of being a member of the privycouncil or of parliament. The legislature has recently, however, authorized the Home Secretary to grant to alien friends, resident in this country, a certificate of naturalization; which, being enrolled in chancery, confers on the grantee, on his taking an oath of

* The children born abroad of a mother, who is a natural-born subject, are capable of taking any real or personal estate by devise, purchase, or succession; and any alien woman who marries a British subject is de facto naturalized.

allegiance and fidelity, all the rights and capacities of a natural-born British subject, except always that of being a member of the privy council or of either house of parliament, or such other rights or capacities as may be specially excepted in the certificate.

CHAPTER XI.

OF THE CLERGY.

Archbishops and bishops-Dean and chapter-Archdeacons-Rural deansParsons and vicars-Curates-Churchwardens-Parish clerks and sextons.

THE people, whether aliens, denizens, or natural-born subjects, are divisible into two kinds; the clergy and the laity: the former will be the subject of the following chapter.

This body of men, being set apart from the rest of the people, in order to attend the more closely to the services of Almighty God, have thereupon large privileges allowed them by our municipal laws. A clergyman cannot be compelled to serve on a jury, nor to appear at a court-leet or view of frank-pledge; which almost every other person is obliged to do. Neither can he be chosen to any temporal office; as bailiff, reeve, constable, or the like, in regard of his own continual attendance on the sacred function. During his attendance on divine service he is privileged from arrest in civil suits, and the infraction of this privilege is an indictable misdemeanour. But as they have their privileges, so also they have their disabilities, on account of their spiritual avocations. Clergymen are incapable of sitting in the House of Commons, or of being councillors or aldermen in boroughs. They are not allowed to farm more than eighty acres, nor to be a partner in any trade or dealing for profit, unless it be carried on by the other partners. No spiritual person can be a director or managing partner; but he may carry on the business of a schoolmaster, or be a director or partner in any benefit or insurance society. He may buy or sell to the extent incidental to his occupation of land, but cannot do so in person or at a public market.

In the frame and constitution of ecclesiastical polity there are divers ranks and degrees; which I shall consider in their respective order.

I. An archbishop or bishop is elected by the chapter of his cathedral church, by virtue of a licence from the crown. Election

was, in very early times, the usual mode of elevation to the episcopal chair throughout all Christendom; and this was promiscuously performed by the laity as well as the clergy; the king reserving the right of confirming the election, and granting investiture of the temporalities. Hence the right of appointing to bishoprics is said to have been in the crown of England, even in Saxon times: because the rights of confirmation and investiture were in effect a right of complete donation. The popes, however, in due course, excepted to the method of granting these investitures, which was by the king delivering to the prelate a ring, and pastoral staff or crosier: pretending that this was an attempt to confer spiritual jurisdiction: and long and eager were the contests thus occasioned. At length, the Emperor Henry V. agreed to confer investitures per sceptrum and not per annulum et baculum; and when the kings of England and France consented also to alter the form and receive only homage from the bishops for their temporalities, the court of Rome found it prudent to suspend its other pretensions. King John was no doubt prevailed upon to give up, to all the monasteries and cathedrals in the kingdom, the free right of electing their prelates, whether abbots or bishops: reserving only to the crown the custody of the temporalities during the vacancy. But the ancient right of nomination was, in effect, restored to the crown by the statute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 20; which enacts that, at every future avoidance of a bishopric, the king may send the dean and chapter his usual licence, or congé d'élire, to proceed to election; which is always to be accompanied with a letter missive from the king, containing the name of the person whom he would have them elect: disobedience to which recommendation involves the penalties of a præmunire.

An archbishop is the chief of the clergy in a whole province; and has the inspection of the bishops of that province, as well as of the inferior clergy. In his own diocese, he exercises episcopal jurisdiction; as in his province he exercises archiepiscopal. As archbishop he, upon receipt of the sovereign's writ, calls the bishops and clergy of his province to meet in convocation; and to him all appeals are made from inferior jurisdictions within his province. During the vacancy of any see in his province, he is guardian of the spiritualities thereof, as the crown is of the temporalities; and he executes all ecclesiastical jurisdiction therein. If an archiepiscopal see be vacant, the dean and chapter are the spiritual guardians, ever since the office of prior of Canterbury was abolished at the Reformation. The archbishop is entitled to present by lapse to all the ecclesiastical livings in the disposal of his diocesan bishops, if not filled within six months; and he has a customary prerogative, like the royal corody, when a bishop is consecrated by him, to name

a clerk or chaplain of his own to be provided for by such suffragan bishop. The archbishop of Canterbury has also, by statute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 21, the power of granting dispensations in any case, not contrary to the Holy Scriptures and the law of God, where the pope used formerly to grant them; which is the foundation of his granting special licences to marry at any place or time; and on this also is founded the right he exercises of conferring degrees, in prejudice of the universities.

The power and authority of a bishop, besides the administration of certain ordinances peculiar to that order, consist principally in inspecting the manners of the people and clergy, and punishing them in order to reformation, by ecclesiastical censures, and in the case of the clergy, by suspension and deposition. To this purpose he has several courts under him, and may visit at pleasure every part of his diocese. His chancellor is appointed to hold his courts for him, and to assist him in matters of ecclesiastical law; who, as well as all other ecclesiastical officers, if lay or married, must be a doctor of the civil law, so created in some university.

It is also the business of a bishop to institute, and to direct induction to all ecclesiastical livings in his diocese, to execute writs of sequestration of the profits of benefices issued by the superior courts, and to license in the first instance, and, if necessary, withdraw (subject to appeal to the archbishop) the license, and regulate the stipends of curates.

Archbishoprics and bishoprics may become void by death, deprivation for any very gross and notorious crime, and also by resignation. All resignations must be made to some superior; therefore a bishop must resign to his metropolitan; but the archbishop can resign to none but the king himself.

II. A dean and chapter are the council of the bishop, to assist him with their advice in affairs of religion, and also in the temporal concerns of his see. When the rest of the clergy were settled in the several parishes of each diocese, these were reserved for the celebration of divine service in the bishop's own cathedral; and the chief of them, who presided over the rest, obtained the name of decanus or dean, being probably at first appointed to superintend ten canons or prebendaries. All deans were formerly elected by the chapter, in the same manner as bishops, but are now appointed directly by the sovereign by letters-patent. The chapter, consisting of canons or prebendaries, are sometimes appointed by the crown, sometimes by the bishop, and sometimes elected by each other.

Deaneries and prebends may become void, like a bishopric, by death, by deprivation, or by resignation to either the crown or the