The Sovereign being thus essentially the source of all authority, and superior to all classes of his people, it seems necessarily to follow that when the rights of the Sovereign and those of a subject clash or come in opposition, those of the Sovereign should take precedence. Hence the law has given the Sovereign various prerogative rights for the recovery of his debts by writ of extent, and has assigned to those debts a priority in payment. The law has indeed anxiously guarded against bringing down the Sovereign in any respect to the level of his subjects, and with that view has consistently exempted him from all those liabilities which fall equally upon all other classes. The Sovereign and a subject cannot be joint-tenants; the sovereign pays no toll,* nor tax; is barred

The recent demand of toll, stated to have been made from her Majesty and suite on crossing Battersea bridge, which, if legal, can scarcely be pronounced becoming, is not without a parallel. Many years since a man named Feltham, rented Hampton bridge, where he made several alterations. As he was anxious to thrive by his tolls he kept the gate locked when nothing was passing. One morning the Royal hunt came across from Hounslow heath to the bridge, where the stag had taken water and swam across. The hounds passed the gate without ceremony, followed by a large party crying, "The King!" Feltham opened his gate, which he closed again after they had rushed through without paying; when a more numerous and showy party came up, vociferating more loudly, "The King! the King!" He stood with his gate in his hand, though menaced with horsewhips. "I'll tell you what," said he, "hang me if I open my gate again till I see your money. I pay 400l. a-year for this bridge, and I laid out 1000l. upon it. I've let King George through, God bless him: I know of no other king in England. If you have brought the King of France, hang me if I let him through without the blunt!" Suddenly the King himself appeared among his attendants; Feltham made his reverence, opened his gate again, and the whole company went over to Moulsey Hurst, where the hounds were at fault. The King, chagrined for the moment, sent back Lord Sandwich to know the reason of the interruption. The man explained the mistake, and added, that when royal hunts passed over this bridge, a guinea had been always

by no lapse of time, cannot be a copyholder, nor hold lands of his subject, nor, to sum up all in a few words, be placed in any manner in such a position with respect to his subjects that his relative superiority over them can be destroyed.

These are the principal prerogative rights of the Sovereign as the head of the state, considered in its corporate and collective capacity. He has other prerogatives in connection with certain peculiar privileged bodies, or component parts of the state, of which bodies he is the Head.

Thus, the Sovereign is the head of the national church, and, although his power in that respect does not extend to any alteration of the established religion, it enables him to reform all abuses in the church, to appoint days for thanksgiving or fasting, to issue proclamations for preventing immorality and profaneness, and enjoin the reading of them in churches and chapels. He is the ultimate judge in ecclesiastical causes; he has the disposal of the principal ecclesiastical preferments; the patronage of all bishopricks and archbishopricks; and, as patron paramount of all the

paid, which franked all, and that this was "his first good turn." Lord Sandwich returned to the King, but his Majesty hastily desired him to pay for all his attendants, who amounted to less than forty of the whole party. The matter was eventually satisfactorily explained to the King, who, crossing the bridge some time afterwards, on a visit to the Stadtholder, then resident at Hampton Court, pulled down the carriage window, and laughing heartily said to old Feltham, "No fear of the King of France coming to-day."

*The celebrated letter of Elizabeth to the Bishop of Ely, is too characteristic of the writer, and of her notions of the prerogative, to be omitted. It is in these words :

"Proud Prelate,

you

"I understand you are backward in complying with your agreement; but I would have you know that I, who made what you are, can unmake you, and if you do not forthwith fulfil your engagement, by God I will immediately unfrock you!

"Yours, as you demean yourself,

"ELIZABETH."

benefices in England, has the right and care of filling all such churches as are not regularly filled by their patrons, whether it happen through neglect or incapacity. The Sovereign may erect a free chapel and exempt it from the jurisdiction of the ordinary; he may call a national or provincial synod, for the determination of all matters of heresy or schism, or other merely spiritual and ecclesiastical causes, and finally, he has an exclusive right to the publication of all liturgies and books of divine service, in use in the established church, and a prerogative copyright in the authorised translation of the bible.

Again, the Sovereign is the head of the parliament, and not only according to constitutional doctrine, but in actual practice, is the only law-maker. The Houses of Lords and Commons are in this respect his advisers. They petition, and advise, and consent; the Sovereign enacts.

The Sovereign alone is entitled to summon a Parliament. The session cannot commence without his presence, either in person or by representation; it may be holden wheresover, and prorogued or dissolved whensoever he pleases; and a prorogued parliament may at any time be called together again by royal proclamation, giving fourteen days' notice.

The Sovereign appoints the speaker of the House of Lords by commission, and the speaker of the Lower House must be approved by him, although chosen by the House itself.

The Sovereign may add any number of members to the House of Peers, by raising individuals to the English peerage. The power formerly possessed of increasing the number of members of the Lower House has probably been relinquished.

In his connection with the houses of Parliament, the Sovereign has the same peculiar independence and superiority to control, with which it has been the policy of the constitution to invest him in all his characters. He may or may not, at pleasure, adopt the advice tendered to him by the two houses, and which is contained in the bills they present to him. If he consents, they become laws; if he does not, there is no constitutional power that can call him to account, or require his reasons for refusal.

It is with a view to these pre-eminent duties that the law views the safety of the Sovereign with an anxiety bordering upon jealousy. The compassing or imagining his destruction, is considered as necessarily co-existing with an intention to destroy the rule and government of the country. Without the Sovereign, the whole framework of the government would be subverted, and to imagine his deposition, is consequently the highest crime against the state of which a subject can be guilty.*

The Sovereign of England in all public instruments and letters uses the plural number. Before the time of Richard I. however, the singular only was used, as may be seen at the end of writs, &c. Teste meipso.

This practice has probably arisen from the twofold office of the Sovereign, of whom the lawyers say, Rex est persona mixta cum sacerdote, habet ecclesiasticam et spiritualem jurisdictionem; wherefore at his coronation he is "anointed with holy oil, as kings, priests, and prophets were of old ;" which practice Selden has shown to have been observed in this country for upwards of a thousand years.

The Sovereign of England is styled "Dei Gratia," by the grace of God, as the sovereigns of France were formerly, and those of

*The law upon this subject was thus stated by Sir John Scott, afterwards Lord Eldon, in his opening speech upon the trial of Hardy for High Treason, in 1794.

"The fact that such is the character, that such are the duties, of the king, accounts for the just anxiety bordering upon jealousy with which the law watches his person-accounts for the fact, that in every indictment the compassing or imagining his destruction or deposition, seems to be considered as necessarily co-existing with an intention to subvert the rule and government established in the country; it is a purpose to destroy and to depose him in whom the supreme power, rule, and government, under constitutional checks and limitations, is vested, and by whom, with consent and advice in some cases, and with advice in all cases, the exercise of this constitutional power is to be carried on."

State Trials, vol. xxiv. p. 246.

Spain still are. And as the French monarch was designated the "Most Christian," the King of Spain, the "Most Catholic," and the Emperor of Germany, the "Defender of the Church," so the Sovereign of England is always styled "Defender of the Faith," a title which was confirmed to Henry VIII. and his successors, by a bull sent to that monarch on the publication of his answer to Martin Luther, by Leo X., as a mark of his holiness's approbation.

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The titles of our Sovereigns have undergone many changes. Henry IV. was "His Grace;" Henry VI., "His Excellent Grace;" Edward IV., " High and Mighty Prince;" Henry VII., sometimes "His Grace," and sometimes "His Highness;" Henry VIII., first “ His Highness," then " His Majesty." The Sovereign has since been styled "Sacred Majesty," and latterly the form adopted has been "Most Excellent Majesty."

The style and titles of her present Majesty, whom God long preserve, are as follows:-"Her Most Excellent Majesty, Victoria, by the grace of God, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; Defender of the Faith; Sovereign of the Most Noble Order of the Garter; of the Most Ancient Order of the Thistle; of the Most Illustrious Order of St. Patrick; of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath; and of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, of the Ionian Islands," &c.

It will be seen that her Majesty does not style herself Sovereign of France, as did her predecessor, Queen Elizabeth of glorious memory, who, regardless of the Salic law, was resolved, that if she could not be Queen, she would be King of France,* and neither

* "One good thing has followed from our dropping (I cannot consent to use any stronger term) the title of King of France; our official correspondence with foreign courts, instead of being carried on in French, which used to be the case, is now invariably, I believe, carried on in the English language." So says the author of "Heraldic Anomalies," vol. i. p. 136; who thereupon proceeds to tell the following story:

During the war between England and Spain, in the time of Queen