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SUCCESSION OF THE CROWN.

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that there was a vacancy of the Throne, and proceeded to fill up that vacancy in such manner as they judged most proper; and this was done by their Declaration of February 12, 1688, in the following manner:-"That William and Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, be, and be declared, King and Queen of England, to hold the Crown and the Royal dignity during their lives, and the life of the survivor of them; and that the sole and full exercise of the regal power be only in, and executed by, the said Prince of Orange, in the names of the said Prince and Princess, during their joint lives; and after their deceases the said Crown and Royal dignity to be to the heirs of the body of the said Princess, and for default of such issue to the Princess Anne of Denmark and the heirs of her body, and for default of such issue to the heirs of the body of the said Prince of Orange."

King William, Queen Mary, and Queen Anne did not take the Crown by hereditary right or descent, but by way of donation or by purchase, as the lawyers call it, by which word "purchase" they mean any method of acquiring an estate otherwise than by descent.

The new settlement did not merely consist in excluding King James and the person pretending to be Prince of Wales, and then suffering the Crown to descend in the old hereditary channel(for the usual course of descent was in some instances broken through)-yet the Convention kept it before them, and paid a great, though not exclusive, regard to it.

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 to 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. The Parliament had previously, by 1 Wm. & Mary, stat. 2, c. 2, enacted that every person who should be reconciled to, or hold communion with, the See of Rome, or profess the Popish religion, or 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, 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 render as much regard to the old hereditary line as their former resolutions would admit, they turned their attention to the Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess-Dowager of Hanover, the most accomplished princess of her age; 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, the youngest daughter of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, and the daughter of James I., was the 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 Crown, expectant on the death of King William and Queen Anne without issue, was settled by stat. 12 & 13 Wm. III., c. 2; 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 established.

The Princess Sophia dying before Queen Anne, the inheritance thus limited descended on her son and heir, King 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 George III. the Crown descended to his eldest son, George IV., who, dying without leaving issue, was succeeded by William IV., the third son of George III.; the second son, Frederick Augustus, Duke of York, having previously died without lawful issue. On the death of William IV., the Crown descended to the only child of Edward Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III., our present gracious Sovereign, Queen Victoria.

CHAPTER IX.

THE QUEEN AND THE ROYAL FAMILY.

Let us now direct our attention to the Sovereign and the Members of the Royal Family, in the order which seems natural and proper; then to the consideration of the divers Councils of the Sovereign who assist her in the discharge of her duties, the maintenance of her dignity, and the execution of her prerogative.

Give a brief Description of the Queen and the Royal Family, and state the Duties of the Sovereign.

The Queen of England is either queen-regent, queen-consort, or queen-dowager. The queen-regent, regnant, or sovereign, is she who holds the Crown in her own right, as the first Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Anne, and Queen Victoria; and such a one has the same powers, prerogatives, rights, dignities, and duties as a king would have.

The principal duty of the Crown is to govern the people according to law; and this is not only consonant to the principles of liberty, reason, and of society, but has always been esteemed an express part of the common law of England, even when prerogative was at the highest. "The King," says Bracton, who wrote under Henry III., “ought not to be subject to man, but to God and to the law; for the law maketh the King, and he is not truly King where will rules, and not the law;" and Fortescue, two centuries later, lays it down as a principle "that the King of England must rule his people according to the decrees of the laws thereof, inasmuch that he is bound by an oath at his coronation to the observance

and keeping of his own laws." Stat. 12 & 13 Wm. III., c. 2, also declares 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.

Besides the attribute of sovereignty, the law also ascribes to the Queen in her political capacity absolute perfection; for the Sovereign is not only incapable of doing wrong, but even of thinking wrong, which ancient and fundamental maxim is not to be understood as if everything transacted by the Government was just and lawful, but means two things. First, that whatever is exceptionable in the conduct of public affairs, is not to be imputed to the Sovereign, nor is she answerable for it personally to the people; for that would totally destroy that constitutional independence of the Crown which is necessary for the balance of power in our free and active and compounded Constitution; and, secondly, it means that the prerogative of the Crown extends not to do any injury; it is created for the benefit of the people, and therefore cannot be exerted to their prejudice.

The law also determines that on the part of the Sovereign there can be no negligence, or lâches. Nullum tempus occurrit regi has been the standing maxim; for the law intends that the Crown is always busied for the public good. In the eye of the law the Sovereign is always present in all the courts; the judges are the mirrors by which the Sovereign's image is reflected. The Sovereign is the fountain of justice, of honour, of office, and of privilege—the arbiter of commerce, the head of the Church, and the dernier ressort in all ecclesiastical causes.

The husband of a Queen Regent is her subject, and may be guilty of high treason against her.

The QUEEN CONSORT, or wife of the reigning king, is a notable person enjoying peculiar privileges, exemptions, and pecuniary advantages. She can purchase land without the concurrence

THE ROYAL PREROGATIVE.

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of her lord, and convey it; may grant leases, and do other acts of ownership. She is also capable of taking a grant from the King, which no other wife can from her husband. She may likewise sue and be sued alone, without joining her husband; in short, she is in all legal proceedings looked upon as a feme sole, and not as a feme covert-as a single, not as a married woman. The common law established this to prevent the King being troubled with his wife's private affairs.

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, pro dignitate regali, no man can marry a Queen Dowager without special licence from the Crown, on pain of the forfeiture of his lands and goods.

The Prince of Wales, or heir apparent to the Crown, and also his royal consort, and the Princess Royal, or eldest daughter of the Queen, are likewise peculiarly regarded by the laws; to compass or conspire the death of the former, or to violate the chastity of the latter, is high treason.

The rest of the Royal Family-the younger sons and daughters, and other branches of the Royal Family who are not in the immediate line of succession, were little further regarded by the ancient law than to give them a certain degree of precedence before all peers and public officers, as well ecclesiastical as temporal. In 1718, upon a question referred to all the Judges by King George I., it was resolved by the opinion of ten against the other two that the education and care of all the King's children, while minors, belonged of right to the Crown. And no Prince of the Blood can marry without the Sovereign's consent, unless he be twenty-five years old; nor even then, without twelve months' notice being given to the Privy Council. A marriage otherwise will be void, and persons assisting or being present will incur the penalties of præmunire.

Explain the Royal Prerogative, and specify its particular extent and restrictions.

By the word "prerogative" we usually understand that special pre-eminence which the King has over and above all other persons in right of his regal dignity.

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