begins in the House of Lords. And when both houses have done with any bill, it always is deposited in the House of Peers, to wait the royal assent; except in the case of a bill of supply, which, after receiving the concurrence of the lords, is sent back to the House of Commons.

The royal assent may be given in two ways: 1. In person; when the sovereign comes to the House of Peers, and sending for the commons to the bar, the titles of all the bills that have passed both houses are read; and the royal answer is declared by the clerk of the parliament. If the sovereign consents to a public bill, the clerk usually declares, “le roy (or la reine) le veut,” if to a private bill," soit fait comme il est desiré." If the sovereign refuses his assent, it is in the gentle language of "le roy s'avisera.” When a bill of supply is passed, it is presented to the sovereign by the speaker of the House of Commons; and the royal assent is thus expressed, "le roy remercie ses loyal sujets, accepte leur benevolence, et aussi le veut." The crown may, however, give its assent to bills by commission. And, when the bill has received the royal assent, it is then, and not before, a statute or act of parliament.

This statute is placed among the records of the kingdom, there needing no formal promulgation to give it the force of a law, because every man is, in judgment of law, party to making an act of parliament, being present thereat by his representatives. A statute thus made is the exercise of the highest authority that this kingdom acknowledges upon earth; and cannot be altered, amended, dispensed with, suspended, or repealed, but in the same forms and by the same authority of parliament.

VII. Lastly as to the manner in which parliaments may be adjourned, prorogued, or dissolved.

An adjournment is no more than a continuance of the session from one day to another, as the word signifies: and this is done by the authority of each house separately every day; and sometimes for a fortnight or a month together, as at Christmas or Easter. But the adjournment of one house is no adjournment of the other.

A prorogation is the continuance of the parliament from one

session to another, as an adjournment is the continuation of the session from day to day. This is done by the royal authority, expressed either by the lord chancellor in the presence of the sovereign, or by commission, or proclamation.

A dissolution is the civil death of the parliament; and this may be effected: 1. By the sovereign's will, or 2. By lapse of time.

It is a branch of the royal prerogative, either to prorogue the parliament for a time, or to put a final period to its existence. If nothing had a right to prorogue or dissolve a parliament but itself, it might happen to become perpetual. It is, therefore, necessary that the crown should be empowered to regulate its duration, under the limitations which the English constitution has prescribed; so that, on the one hand, it may frequently and regularly meet for the redress of grievances; and may not, on the other, even with the consent of the crown, be continued to an unconstitutional length.

A dissolution formerly happened immediately upon the death of the reigning sovereign; for he being considered its head, that failing, the whole body was held to be extinct. But calling a new parliament immediately on the inauguration of the successor being found inconvenient, it is now provided that the parliament in being shall continue so long as it would have continued but for such demise, unless sooner prorogued or dissolved by the successor.

2. A parliament may expire by length of time. For if the legislative body might last for the life of the prince who convened it, as formerly; and were to be supplied, by filling the occasional vacancies with new representatives; in these cases, if once corrupted, the evil would be past remedy: but when different bodies succeed each other, if the people disapprove of the present, they may rectify its faults in the next. As our constitution now stands, parliament must die a natural death, at the end of every seventh year, if not sooner dissolved.

CHAPTER III.

OF THE SOVEREIGN AND HIS TITLE.

THE supreme executive power of these kingdoms is vested in a single person, the king or queen; for it matters not to which sex the crown descends: the person entitled to it being immediately invested with all the rights and prerogatives of sovereign power. This power being thus vested in a single person, it is necessary to the peace of the state, that a rule should be laid down, to mark out with precision who is that single person, to whom is committed the protection of the community; and to whom, in return, the allegiance of every individual is due.

The fundamental maxim upon which the jus corona depends, I take to be this: "that the crown is, by common law and "constitutional custom, hereditary; and this in a manner 66 peculiar to itself; but that the right of inheritance may from "time to time be changed or limited by act of parliament; "under which limitations the crown still continues hereditary."

1. Firstly, it is hereditary, or descendible to the next heir, on the death of the last proprietor. By a hereditary, I by no means intend a jure divino title to the throne. Such a title may have subsisted under the theocratic establishment of the children of Israel in Palestine. The hereditary right which our laws acknowledge, owes its origin to the founders of our constitution, and to them only. They might have made it an elective monarchy; they rather chose to establish a succession by inheritance. This was acquiesced in; 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 established hereditary succession in the one as well as the other.

2. Secondly, this mode of inheritance corresponds with the feudal path of descents in landed estates. Like estates, the

crown descends lineally to the issue of the reigning monarch, as it did from John to Richard II., through six lineal generations. As in common descents, the preference of males to females, and the right of primogeniture among males, are adhered to. Thus Edward V. succeeded in preference to Richard his younger brother, and Elizabeth his elder sister. Like lands or tenements the crown, on failure of the male, descends to the female issue. Thus Mary succeeded to Edward VI., and the line of Margaret Queen of Scots, daughter of Henry VII., succeeded on failure of the line of Henry VIII. But among females, the crown descends to the eldest only and her issue; and not, as in common inheritances, to all the daughters at once; the necessity of a sole succession to the throne having occasioned the royal law of descents to depart from the common law in this respect; and therefore Mary succeeded alone, and not in partnership with Elizabeth. Again, the doctrine of representation prevails here, as in other inheritances; whereby the lineal descendants of a deceased stand in the same place as their ancestor, if living, would have done. Thus Richard II. succeeded his grandfather Edward III., in right of his father the Black Prince, to the exclusion of his uncles. 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 royal stock which originally acquired the crown. Thus Henry I. succeeded to William II., John to Richard I., and James I. to Elizabeth, being all derived from the Conqueror, then the only regal stock.

3. Thirdly, Hereditary right by no means implies an indefeasible right to the throne. For the supreme legislative authority may defeat this hereditary right; and, by particular limitations and provisions, exclude the immediate heir, and vest the inheritance in any one else.

4. Fourthly, however the crown may be limited or transferred it retains its descendible quality, and becomes hereditary in the wearer. Hence the king never dies, in his political, though he is subject to mortality in his natural capacity; because immediately upon the natural death of Henry, William, or Edward, the sovereign survives in his successor. For the right of the crown vests, eo instanti, upon his heir; either the hæres natus, if the course of descent remains unimpeached, or the

hæres factus, if the inheritance be under any particular settlement. There can be no interregnum; the right of sovereignty is fully vested in the successor by the very descent of the crown; and becomes in him hereditary, unless it has been otherwise determined.

In these four points consists the constitutional notion of hereditary right to the throne; which will be still further elucidated by a short historical view of the succession and the several statutes that have from time to time declared limited or barred the hereditary title to the throne.

King Egbert, about A.D. 800, found himself in possession of the throne of the West Saxons by an undisturbed descent of above three hundred years. How his ancestors acquired their title, it matters not now to inquire; his right must be supposed good, because we know no better.

From Egbert to the death of Edmund Ironside, a period of above two hundred years, the crown descended regularly through fifteen princes; the sons of Ethelwolf succeeding to each other without regard to the children of the elder branches, according to the rule prescribed by their father, and confirmed by the witena-gemote, in the heat of the Danish invasions: and Edred, the uncle of Edwy, holding the throne for about nine years, in right of his nephew, a minor, with a view to preserve the succession to Edwy, who succeeded.

Edmund Ironside was obliged, by the irruption of the Danes, at first to divide his kingdom with Canute; and Canute, after his death, seized the whole of it, Edmund's son being driven into foreign countries. Here the succession was suspended by force, and a new family placed upon the throne: in whom it continued hereditary for three reigns; when, upon the death of Hardicanute, the Saxon line was restored in the person of Edward the Confessor.

He was not, indeed, the true heir to the crown, being the younger brother of Edmund Ironside, who had a son Edward, surnamed the Outlaw, still living. But this son was then in Hungary and, the English having shaken off the Danish yoke, it was necessary that somebody on the spot should mount the throne; and the Confessor was the next of the royal line then in