eldest son of the reigning sovereign, that is to say upon the heir apparent, but not the heir presumptive. This is effected by letters patent.

By the Treason Act, 1351, it is treason to compass the death of the Prince of Wales, or to violate the chastity of his wife, or of the eldest daughter, being unmarried, of the king or queen.

The children of sons of the sovereign are entitled to the style of "Royal Highness" (conferred by letters patent in 1864); and by a statute of Henry VIII. the king's children are entitled only to such precedence as Parliament and the Council allows. (1)

By the Royal Marriages Act, 1772 (12 Geo. III. c. 11), no descendant of George II. (except the issue of princesses married into foreign families) may contract a valid marriage without the consent of the king or queen given under the Great Seal. But at the age of twenty-five they may marry without such consent after twelve months' notice to the Privy Council, if in the mean time the two Houses of Parliament have not disapproved of such marriage. (m)

The queen consort is, in general, a subject of the king and amenable to the ordinary law, except (1) that she is free from the disabilities of married women with regard to property and procedure, and may sue and be sued as a feme sole (2) her life and chastity are protected by the law of treason during her marriage with the king. She is represented in the courts by her own attorney and solicitor-general. The queen dowager ceases to be protected by the law of treason.

The position of a king consort has varied at different times. When Queen Mary married Philip of Spain, it was statutorily provided that the queen was to enjoy all the prerogatives and exercise all the powers of the Crown as sole queen. Official documents were, however, to be executed in their joint names. (n)

William III. declined to be king consort, and it was provided by statute that the regal power was to be vested

(7) 31 Hen. VIII. c. 10. By this Act none but the king's children are to presume to sit at the side of the cloth of estate in the Parliament chamber, and certain precedence above all others is conferred upon such dukes as are the king's sons, brothers, uncles, nephews, or brothers' or sisters' sons.

(m) 12 Geo. III. c. 11.

(n) 1 & 2 Ph. & M. c. 10.

solely in and be exercised solely by his Majesty in the joint names of both their Majesties. (o) The Crown was limited to the king and queen to hold during their joint lives and the life of the survivor of them. (p)

The consort of Queen Anne became a naturalized British subject by statute in 1702, (q) and was also introduced to the Privy Council. In other respects he was an ordinary subject of the queen.

When Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha married Queen Victoria, he was naturalized by statute, (r) and introduced to the Privy Council. (8) He was invested by the queen in the exercise of her prerogative with precedence next to that of the queen, and was created Prince Consort by letters patent in 1857. In other respects he was an ordinary subject of her Majesty.

The Royal Prerogative.

The Crown's prerogative may be defined in Blackstone's words with a slight modification as being "that which the king hath over and above all other persons, by virtue of the common law, but out of its ordinary course, in right of his royal dignity." (t) The prerogative as thus defined springs from three sources: (1) The old system of tribal chieftaincy, which gave rise to the executive powers of the Crown; (2) the old system of feudal chieftaincy, which gave rise to such rights as escheats, treasure trove, the custody of infants and idiots, and from which the doctrines of allegiance and treason sprang; (3) the various legal maxims evolved by lawyers, e.g. the king can do no wrong," or "nullum tempus occurrit regi." The present state of the prerogative can scarcely be understood without some reference to its past history and the

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(0) 2 Will. & M. st. 1 c. 6.

(p) 1 Will. & M. sess 2, c. 2.
(r) 3 & 4 Vict. cc. 1, 2.

(q) 1 Anne, c. 2. (8) He did not, however, become a privy councillor, it being provided by the Act of Settlement that no person born outside the United Kingdom (although he be naturalized or made a denizen, except such as are born of English parents) shall be capable to become a privy councillor or a member of either House of Parliament." As to persons naturalized under the Naturalization Act, 1870, see, however, p. 11, ante.

(t) The words "by virtue of the common law" are added to Blackstone's definition, because it is clear that the prerogative forms part of the common law, and the courts have frequently adjudicated upon its extent.

struggle between the Crown and Parliament to fix its limits, which occupies so large a space in the history of England, from the time of Magna Carta, 1215, to the Act of Settlement, 1700. The results of this struggle are embodied in the four great statutory landmarks, viz. Magna Carta, 1215; the Petition of Right, 1628; the Bill of Rights, 1688; and the Act of Settlement, 1700. With the last of these the struggle was practically ended, and the limits of the prerogative, which had been stretched by the Stuarts to an unbridled extent under the theory of divine right, were fixed in accordance with the popular will.

These constitutional documents, however, must not be considered so much as encroachments upon existing prerogative rights, as agreements come to, reluctantly perhaps, on the part of the Crown as to what the limits of that prerogative, which had never hitherto been fixed, actually were.

The principal topics which were the source of strife between the Crown and Parliament were arbitrary imprisonment, arbitrary taxation, the maintenance of a standing army and the issuing of commissions of martial law in time of peace, the granting of monopolies and exclusive trading licences, the suspension of and dispensing with Acts of Parliament, the control of the judiciary, and the right of independent legislation.

Arbitrary Imprisonment. This, or indeed arbitrary punishment of any kind, was a direct infringement of the terms of Magna Carta, and the Petition of Right, 1628, again affirmed that no freeman should be imprisoned or detained contrary to the law of the land. The jurisdiction of the king in Council, exercised by the Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission, and commissions of martial law still remained as standing grievances, and were justly held in odium through the arbitrary nature of their proceedings. The Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission fell in 1640, (u) and by the Bill of Rights, 1688, the issuing of commissions of martial law in time of peace was forbidden. The greatest safeguard, however, for the liberty of the subject at the present day is to be found in the Habeas Corpus Acts. (x)

(u) 16 Car. I. cc. 10, 11. The Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes, established by James II., was abolished by the Bill of Rights. (x) 31 Car. II. c. 2; 56 Geo. III. c. 100, as to which see ante, p. 28.

Arbitrary Taxation.-Arbitrary taxation by means of proclamation, letters patent, or writs under the Great Seal was frequently resorted to by the Tudors and Stuarts in order to meet the inroads made upon the Exchequer by expensive wars, and often by their own extravagance. The Commons no doubt granted money reluctantly and, in many cases, too sparingly to meet the national requirements, as was perhaps only natural at a time when they had little or no voice in its expenditure. The government of the country, however, and the public services had to be carried on, and it seems hardly to be wondered at that the Crown was often forced into methods of taxation opposed to the spirit of Magna Carta. The judiciary openly sided with the Crown in its illegal impositions, and both Bates' case, 1606, and Hampden's case, 1637, were given in its favour; but it must be remembered that the judges at that time held office at the pleasure of the Crown, and the more likely perhaps to be subservient in their decisions. In the former case, an information having been laid against John Bates for refusing to pay a customs duty of five shillings per cwt. on currants, this tax having been imposed by letters patent, it was pleaded on behalf of the defendant that the duty was illegal. The four Barons of the Exchequer decided unanimously in favour of the Crown. (y) This decision led to the Petition of Grievances, 1610, which resulted in a remission of the taxes on alehouses and sea coal, but not in the concession of the principle involved. The Petition of Right followed in 1628, by which Charles I. pledged the Crown not to resort to taxation otherwise than by Act of Parliament; this pledge, however, he studiously disregarded, and in 1637 Hampden's case (known as the case of Ship Money) was given in favour of the Crown by seven judges out of twelve. (2) In consequence of this decision the Long Parliament passed an Act declaring all the proceedings in Hampden's case "contrary to the laws and statutes of the realm, the rights of property, the liberty of the subject, and the Petition of Right," and vacated and cancelled the judgment. (a)

The attempts of the Crown to impose taxation without

(y) (1606-1610) 2 St. Tri. 371.
(z) (1637) 3 St. Tri. 825.

(a) 16 Car. I. c. 14.

the consent of Parliament came to an end with the revolution of 1688, and the Bill of Rights, 1688, which gave the Crown to William and Mary, at the same time declared that the levying of money for the use of the Crown without grant of Parliament is illegal.

The Maintenance of a Standing Army. The maintenance of a standing army, or rather the continuous embodiment of the militia, which at that time took the place of a standing army, and the issue of commissions of martial law in time of peace, formed one of the great grievances against Charles I. It was obvious to Parliament that a standing army under the sole control of the king was a perpetual menace to the liberties of the subject, and though the Petition of Right (1628) did not expressly forbid it, it did what amounted to the same thing by prohibiting in time of peace the billeting of soldiers or sailors on private houses, and the issue of commissions of martial law, by which alone the army could be properly disciplined.

After the Restoration an Act was passed which declared the militia and all other forces by sea and land to be under the sole government and command of the king, (b) and both Charles II. and James II., with the consent of Parliament, kept up a permanent body of guards, which the latter monarch increased to 30,000 on his own authority. (c) The Bill of Rights declared the maintenance of a standing army and the issue of commissions of martial law in time of peace illegal, and since that date the regular standing army has been maintained on a legal footing by means of annual Acts known as Mutiny Acts down to 1881, and since then as the Annual Army Acts.

Monopolies and Exclusive Trading Licences.-The Tudors and Stuarts claimed and frequently exercised the prerogative of granting monopolies for the exclusive right of manufacturing, selling, buying, or using commodities, whether they were the invention of the grantee or not. This right of granting monopolies indiscriminately was not admitted at the common law, though the grant of the sole use to a person for a reasonable time of any new art invented by him was held to be (c) Steph. Comm., ii. 598.

(b) 13 Car. II. c. 6.