Crown of the United Kingdom

“ Her withdrawal from parliament and her modes of foreign travel alike enfeebled the illusion which is part of the fabric of a perfectly balanced monarchy that the motive power of government resides in the sovereign.
In one other regard the queen, by conduct which can only be assigned to care for her The queen and Ireland. personal comfort at the cost of the public advantage, almost sapped the influence which the crown can legitimately exert on the maintenance of a healthy harmony among the component parts of the United Kingdom. Outside England she bestowed markedly steady favour on Scotland. ”

“ The Regent shall not have power to assent to any Bill for changing the order of succession to the Crown or for repealing or altering an Act of the fifth year of the reign of Queen Anne made in Scotland entitled “An Act for Securing the Protestant Religion and Presbyterian Church Government.”
Guardianship, &c. of Sovereign during Regency. 5. ”

“ Succession to the Crown Act 2013 (c. 20) , an UK Act that implements the Perth Agreement by changed the laws of succession of the British throne, and required sovereign consent for certain royal marriages. ”

“ I have always felt that the fact that the enemy was physically defeated on the ground had a great psychological effect on the people, which was manifested in their subsequent attitude towards us. The people gave their liberators a great welcome. They accepted the change to Crown Colony status, and, despite the pitiable conditions—the majority were without housing, clothing or personal possessions, and money and even foodstuffs were in short supply—they got down to the restoration of their country with determination and a splendid spirit. ”

“ Nothing can be more contrary to the true notion of the British constitution, than to imagine, that by such measures his majesty's real interest is advanced. The true interest, my lords, of every monarch, is to please the people, and the only way of pleasing Britons, is to preserve their liberties, their reputation, and their commerce. Every attempt to extend the power of the crown beyond the limits prescribed by our laws, must in effect make it weaker, by diverting the only source of its strength, the affection of his subjects. ”

“ If any person shall hold, affirm, or maintain that the common laws of this realm, not altered by parliament, ought not to direct the right of the crown of England; or that the queen’s majesty, with and by the authority of parliament, is not able to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity, to limit and bind the crown of this realm, and the descent, limitation, inheritance, and government thereof;—such person, so holding, affirming, or maintaining, shall during the life of the queen be guilty of high treason ”

“ Power of legislation reserved to the Crown We do also reserve to Ourselves, Our heirs and successors, Our and their undoubted right, with the advice of Our or their Privy Council, to make all such laws as may appear necessary for the peace, order, and good government of the Colony. ”

“ Side by side with these two elements in the situation was the conviction which has now become fixed throughout the Empire that the Crown is the pivot upon which its unity and future co-operation naturally and properly turns; that the Sovereign is the one possible central figure of allegiance for all its scattered countries and world-wide races; that without the Crown as the symbol of union and the King as the living object of allegiance and personal sentiment the British realms would be a series of separated units. ”

“ The authority of the British Crown is at this moment the most powerful instrument, under Providence, of maintaining peace and order in many extensive regions of the earth, and thereby assists in diffusing among millions of the human race, the blessings of Christianity and civilization. ”

“ As infidels, heathen, and savages, they were not allowed to possess the prerogatives belonging to absolute, sovereign and independent nations. [13] The territory, over which they wandered, and which they used for their temporary and fugitive purposes, was, in respect to Christians, deemed, as if it were inhabited only by brute animals. There is not a single grant from the British crown from the earliest grant of Elizabeth down to the latest of George the Second, that affects to look to any title, except that founded on discovery. Conquest or cession is not once alluded to. ”

“ The Committee cannot conceive that a charter from the crown of Great Britain can give the grantees a right or power over a people, who, to our knowledge, have never owned any allegiance, or acknowledged the sovereignty of the crown of Great Britain, or any Prince in Europe; but have indiscriminately visited and traded with the French, Spaniards, and English, as they judged it most for their advantage ”

“ How has the Crown become such an important factor in the modern development of British peoples? The answer is not found altogether in personal considerations nor even in those of loyalty to somewhat vague and undefined principles of government. These considerations have had great weight but so also has the traditional and actual power of the Monarchy in moulding institutions and ideas during a thousand years of history. To a much greater extent than is generally understood in these democratic days has this latter influence been a factor. ”

“ And when our kings have the same warrant as they had, whether it be to sit upon the throne of their fathers, or to destroy the house of the preceding sovereign, they will then, and not before, possess the crown of England by a right like theirs, immediately derived from heaven. ”

“ The position of the Monarch was once that of the head of a class, or the leader of some distinct manifestation of public feeling, or the military chief of a great faction; to-day it is that of embodying the power of a united people, giving dignified interpretation to the policy of a nation, and serving as the symbol of unity to the masses of population in an extended empire.
One of the interesting features in the Crown's popularity and influence is the absence of serious criticism or controversy [Pg 28] over the expense of its maintenance. ”

“ Despotic sovereigns are at liberty to divest themselves of their powers at any time, but it is otherwise with a limited monarchy. The throne of Great Britain cannot be lawfully abdicated unless with the consent of the two Houses of Parliament. When James II., after throwing the great seal into the Thames, fled to France in 1688, he did not formally resign the crown, and the question was discussed in parliament whether he had forfeited the throne or had abdicated. ”

“ No one pretends that the English would be less patriotic under a republic; and yet with the strengthening conception of the British Empire, the importance of the Crown as the symbol of imperial unity has been more keenly felt. ”

“ To all others in arms against the Government we hereby promise unconditional pardon, amnesty, and oblivion of all offences against ourselves, our crown and dignity, on their return to their homes and peaceful pursuits. ”

“ In England the crown lands, though alienated by absolute deeds, have been often resumed, as a publick right, without the power of the king to destroy. Laws for enabling chartered aristocracies of interest to raise a revenue, impair the national ability to defend its liberty; deeds for alienating crown lands, only impaired the ability of a king to maintain his dignity; perhaps his vices. For the first species of right, nations receive nothing ”

“ He never regarded himself as in any sense the servant of the people. It was as the sworn servant of the Crown that he always spoke and acted, and the only test he ever applied to any project of legislation was whether it was likely to strengthen or weaken the Monarchy. No considerations of personal consistency, conviction, or convenience could deter him from accepting or abandoning a policy or a principle, if it could be shown that by doing either he prevented the authority of his Sovereign from being undermined. Duty to the Crown was the pole-star of his life. ”

“ England held that safety against anarchy within and against attacks on the national independence from without was to be found in the Crown alone, and that obedience to the Crown was the first element of national order and national greatness. ”

“ If they cannot maintain a majority in Parliament by the use of the patronage and influence of the crown, they must yield their places to their successful rivals; and the king, without the least hesitation, will receive as his confidential advisers to-morrow, the very men whose principles he had condemned but yesterday. Such is a king of England. He can do no wrong. ”

“ It could not be held, without breaking up all the foundations of our polity, that the monarchy emanated from the parliament, or even from the people. But by the revolution and by the act of settlement, the rights of the actual monarch, of the reigning family, were made to emanate from the parliament and the people. In technical language, in the grave and respectful theory of our constitution, the Crown is still the fountain from which law and justice spring forth. ”

“ It has been objected of late that English royalty is not splendid enough. It is compared with the French court, which is quite the most splendid thing in France; but the French emperor is magnified to emphasise the equality of everyone else. Great splendour in our court would incite competition. Fourthly, we have come to regard the crown as the head of our morality. Lastly, constitutional royalty acts as a disguise; it enables our real rulers to change without heedless people knowing it. ”

“ Therefore, the grants being by the king, for his heirs and successors, and the tenures being of the king, his heirs and successors, and the preservation being to the king, his heirs, and successors, are so far from proving that we were to be part of an empire, as one state, subject to the supreme authority of the English or British state, and subject to its protection, that they do not so much as prove that we are annexed to the English crown. ”

“ In other countries such a vassal owed fealty to his lord against all foes, be they king or no. By the usage however which William enacted in England each sub-tenant, in addition to his oath of fealty to his lord, swore fealty directly to the Crown, and loyalty to the King was thus established as the supreme and universal duty of all Englishmen. ”

“ Yea, and all other laws used in the realm, when they halt, or are defective in any point, they may, in every parliament, be set to rights. Whereupon it may be rightly concluded, that the laws of England are the best in the world, either actually or potentially, since they can easily be brought into act or being. To the performance whereof, as often as equity so requires, every King is bound by an oath solemnly taken at the time of receiving his crown. ”

“ Intentions of its leaders.No one had the least intention of upsetting the throne of King Charles. But in civil matters all were agreed in wishing to purify the Law Courts and to restore the ‘ancient constitution’, by which they meant the control of Parliament over the Crown, as it had existed before the Wars of the Roses. The ‘strong government’ of the Tudors, they said, had been necessary at the time; it was no longer necessary. The King of England ought to be a ‘limited monarch’, not an ‘absolute monarch’, and Charles must be made to realize the fact. ”

“ And a naked constitutional precept would be as strong a check upon actual power, as a naked didactick aristocracy. A French senate, an English house of lords, and the conscript fathers under the Roman emperors, are examples of these assertions. These examples display the justness of Lord Shaftsbury's and Mr. Adams's opinion, as to the necessity of a balance of property among orders, to enable one order to balance another in power. The nobility in England can no longer balance the crown, because its property is lost. The senate in France cannot balance the emperor, for want of wealth. ”

“ On that great day, and in that great company, the King signed Magna Charta—the great charter of England—by which he pledged himself to maintain the Church in its rights; to relieve the Barons of oppressive obligations as vassals of the crown—of which the Barons, in their turn, pledged themselves to relieve thier vassals, the people; to respect the liberties of London and all other cities and boroughs; to protect foreign merchants who came to England; to imprison no man without a fair trial ”

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Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
This work is in the public domain worldwide because it was created by a public body of the United Kingdom with Crown Status and commercially published before 1973. ”

“ Laws were passed against noblemen keeping large retinues, and were not suffered to remain a dead letter. The nobility of England learned to stand in awe of the Crown in a way they never did before, and never have done since. Every branch of the royal family, except the reigning dynasty, was on one pretext or another lopped away. Every powerful nobleman knew that just in proportion as he was great, it was necessary for him to be circumspect. ”

“ Thus I think it clearly appears, from the highest authority this nation is acquainted with, that the crown of England hath been ever an hereditary crown; though subject to limitations by parliament. The remainder of this chapter will consist principally of those instances, wherein the parliament has asserted or exercised this right of altering and limiting the succession; a right which, we have seen, was before exercised and asserted in the reigns of Henry IV, Henry VII, Henry VIII, queen Mary, and queen Elizabeth. ”