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commit to prison; which warrant must be in writing, under the hand and seal of the magistrate, and express the causes of commitment, in order to be examined into, if necessary, upon a habeas corpus ; for if there be no cause expressed, the gaoler is not bound to detain the prisoner. We are not now speaking of the mere arrest of a person, which, as we shall see hereafter, may, in some criminal cases, be without a warrant (†).

Reputation.]-The reputation of a person also is under the protection of the law; for persons in their natural capacities, absolutely and simply considered, have an interest in their good name. Injuries affecting a man's reputation or good name are :-1st, by malicious, scandalous, and slanderous words, tending to his damage and derogation; 2nd, by printing and writing libels against him; and 3dly, by preferring malicious indictments or prosecutions against him; the remedies for which will be severally considered in the subsequent parts of this work.

CHAP. V.

THE SOVEREIGN.

[See 1 Bl. Com. ch. 3; 2 Steph. Com. B. 4, ch. 2—6, p. 416-543.]

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Having in the last chapter treated of persons their natural capacities, or rather as individuals, we now have to notice persons in their relative or civil capacity. This branch of our subject will extend to some length and embrace some of the most important titles of the law.

It is to be observed that a person in his relative or civil capacity is either the sovereign or a subject. Subjects are either of the clergy or laity; of the nobility or commonalty; and some among the nobility or commonalty are of the military or maritime state. Persons also, in their civil capacities, may be considered as public officers, and incorporated bodies; and lastly, in the relative characters of master and servant, husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward.

The Sovereign, that is the King, or Queen regnant, is the head of the commonwealth, and the only supreme governor; and it matters not to which sex the Crown descends; but the person entitled to it, whether male or female, is immediately invested with all the

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ensigns, rights, and prerogatives of sovereign power. The King may be considered with regard to his title, his family, his councils, his duties, his prerogative, and his revenue.

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Sovereign's title.]—The King's title is hereditary or descendible to the next heir, on the death or demise of the last proprietor; and as to the particular mode of inheritance, it in general corresponds with the feudal path of descent, chalked out by the common law, in the succession to landed estates; yet with one or two material exceptions. Like them, the Crown will descend lineally to the issue of the reigning monarch; as in them, the preference of males to females, and the right of primogeniture among the males, are strictly adhered to. Like them, on failure of the male line, it descends to the issue female but it descends to the eldest daughter only and her issue; and not, as in common inheritances, to all the daughters at once. The doctrine, also, of representation prevails in the descent of the Crown, as it doth in other inheritances; whereby the lineal descendants of any person deceased stand in the same place as their ancestors, if living, would have done. And lastly, on failure of lineal descendants, the Crown goes to the next collateral relation of the late King, provided they are lineally descended from the blood royal; that is, from that royal stock which originally acquired the Crown. But herein there is no objection (as formerly and even now partially in the case of common descents) to the succession of a brother, an uncle, or other collateral relation of the half blood. The doctrine of hereditary right, however, does by no means imply an indefeasible right to the throne; for it is unquestionably in the power of the supreme legislative authority of this kingdom, the King and both

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Houses of Parliament, to defeat this hereditary right, and by particular intails, limitations, and provisions, to exclude the immediate heir, and to vest the inheritance in any one else; but, however the Crown may be limited or transferred, it still retains its descendible quality, and becomes hereditary in the wearer of it. Hence, in our law, the King is said never to die in his political capacity; though, in common with other men, he is subject to mortality in his natural; because, immediately upon his natural death, the King 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: so that there can be no interregnum; but the sovereignty is fully invested in the successor by the descent of the Crown (a).

The sovereign's family.]—The first and most considerable branch of the royal family is the Queen. The Queen of England is either Queen Regnant, Queen Consort, or Queen Dowager.

A Queen Regnant is she who holds the Crown in her own right as sovereign; and such a one has the same power, prerogatives, rights, dignities, and duties, as if she had been a King. This is the case of our present sovereign, Queen Victoria.

A Queen Consort is the wife of the reigning King; and she, by virtue of her marriage, is participant of divers prerogatives above other women. She is a public person, exempt and distinct from the King, and may purchase lands, convey them, make leases, grant copyholds, and do other acts of ownership, without the concurrence of her lord; which no other married woman can do. She is capable of taking a grant from the King. She hath separate

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courts and officers distinct from the King's, not only in matters of ceremony, but of law. She may sue and be sued alone, without joining her husband. She may have a separate property in goods as well as land; and has a right to dispose of them by will. The Queen pays no toll, nor is liable to any amercement in any court. She is entitled to an ancient perquisite called queen-gold, Aurum Reginæ; and to some others of the like kind; but in general, unless where the law has expressly declared her exempted, she is upon the same footing with other subjects. However, to compass or imagine her death, or to violate her person, is treason.

A Queen Dowager is the widow of the King, and as such enjoys most of the privileges of his Queen Consort.

The second branch of the royal family is the Prince of Wales, or heir apparent to the crown. He is usually made Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester by special creation; but, being the King's eldest son, he is by inheritance Duke of Cornwall without any new creation.

By the act of settlement (12 & 13 Will. 3, c. 2), the Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, the daughter of Elizabeth Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I., is declared to be next in succession, in the Protestant line, to the imperial crown of these kingdoms, after the death of his Majesty King William and the Princess Anne of Denmark, and in default of their issue respectively; so that the common stock, or ancestor, from whence the present royal family must be derived, is the Princess Sophia.

By the 31 Hen. 8, c. 10, no person except the King's children shall sit at the side of the cloth of state in the Parliament chamber; and the King's son, brother, uncle, nephew, or brother's or sister's

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