Royal order

“ In the happiest period of our history, the power of the monarch was modified by institutions of various kinds: by the states-general, which, having the right to confirm or reject new taxes, afforded an opportunity of laying at the foot of the throne the complaints and the wishes [351] of the country; by the magistrates, who, almost sovereign in the judicial order, exercised an efficacious control over the legislature; by the church above all, that energetically defended the supremacy of divine law against the caprices of princes. ”

“ The bill provided that certain great officers of state, namely, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the lord-chancellor, the lord-treasurer, the president of the council, the lord privy seal, the lord high admiral, and the chief-justice of the Queen’s Bench at the time being respectively, should act as lords-justices, to exercise all the powers and authorities of the successor of the crown, as a king would exercise them at present, until his arrival in the kingdom, or until he should otherwise order. ”

“ The royal power saw in this merely a concession from itself, a consultative power, which ought to yield before the royal will, when the latter was clearly manifested, either by lettres de jussion or by the actual words and presence of the king, when he came in person to procure the registration of a law in a so-called lit de justice. ”

“ Therefore, O king, with nothing but the good of the nation at heart, thy servants the three presidents, with all the princes, have enacted this law, and it is now presented to thee for thy royal signature and seal:
"'It is hereby enacted, for the safety of the Union: Let no person offer any prayer or petition to any god or man, except the king, for the space of thirty days; and whosoever shall violate this decree shall be taken and thrown into the den of lions. ”

“ You will not know or understand of any manner of thing to be attempted, done or spoken against Her Majesty’s Person, Honour, Crown or Dignity Royal, but you will lett and withstand the same to the uttermost of your power, and either cause it to be revealed to Her Majesty Herself, or to such of Her Privy Council as shall advertise Her Majesty of the same. You will in all things to be moved, treated and debated in Council, faithfully and truly declare your Mind and Opinion, according to your Heart and Conscience ”

“ And the King our lord, having agreed to this unanimous and uniform resolution and representation of all the knights deputies in the Cortes of the kingdom; he has been pleased, by his royal decree of the seventh of this month, to command it to be remitted to his supreme council, jointly with the writing of renunciation, ordaining that the tenor of the law be forthwith formed, extended, and disposed, with all the circumstances of clearness and strength, for its more inviolable and perpetual observation. ”

“ The authority of the states declared supreme in all affairs of administration and finance, the impeachment of all the counsellors of the king, the dismissal in a body of the officers of justice, and the creation of a council of reformers taken from the three orders; lastly, the prohibition to conclude any truce without the assent of the three states, and the right on their part to re-assemble at their own will without a royal summons. ”

“ Monarchy, if of Divine Right, cannot be bounded or limited by human Laws, nay, what’s more, cannot bind itself; and All our Claims of right by the Law, or Constitution of the Government, All the Jurisdiction and Priviledge of this House, All the Rights and Priviledges of the House of Commons, All the Properties and Liberties of the People, are to give way, not only to the interest, but the will and pleasure of the Crown. ”

“ The King alone makes Laws in Parliament. (16.) Governs both Houses as Head by himself. (17.) By his Council. (18.) By his Judges.
(1.) Hitherto I have endeavoured to shew the Natural Institution of Regal Authority, and to free it from Subjection to an Arbitrary Election of the People: It is necessary also to enquire whether Humane Laws have a Superiority over Princes; because those that maintain the Acquisition of Royal Jurisdiction from the People, do subject the Exercise of it to Positive Laws. ”

“ It has been before observed, that the laws of God, and of the land, are the measures of submission and obedience to the King. Wherefore no one ought, from what has been now said, to infer, that in limited monarchies, where part of the legislative authority is lodged in the body of the people, the subjects are obliged to obey any edicts of the prince not agreeble to the laws enacted by the whole legislature. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Statute of 1562.—The act entitled, "for the assurance of the queen's royal power over all estates and subjects within her dominions," enacts, with an iniquitous and sanguinary retrospect, that all persons, who had ever taken holy orders or any degree in the universities, or had been admitted to the practice of the laws, or held any office in their execution, should be bound to take the oath of supremacy, when tendered to them by a bishop, or by commissioners appointed under the great seal. ”

“ Glancing backwards, we find that the feudal order of the Middle Ages, with its graduated authority—vested in the hands of successive orders of agricultural and military chiefs, subordinated in their turn to one supreme chief, the Sovereign of the realm—had gradually become absorbed in an absolute monarchy. ”

“ The royal assent may be given two ways: 1. In person; when the king comes to the house of peers, in his crown and royal robes, and sending for the commons to the bar, the titles of all the bills that have passed both houses are read; and the king’s answer is declared by the clerk of the parliament in Norman-French: a badge, it must be owned, (now the only one remaining) of conquest; and which one could wish to see fall into total oblivion; unless it be reserved as a solemn memento to remind us that our liberties are mortal, having once been destroyed by a foreign force. ”

“ In Articuli super Chartas; when the Great Charter was confirmed, at the Request of his Prelates, Earls and Barons, we find these Passages. 1. Nevertheless the King and his Council do not intend by reason of this Statute to diminish the King’s Right, &c. 2. And notwithstanding all these things before-mentioned, or any part of them; both the King and his Council, and all they that were present at the making of this Ordinance, will and intend that the Right and Prerogative of his Crown shall be saved to him in all things. ”

“ In the ordinary administration of the government, the Sovereign personally is, so to speak, behind the scenes; performing, indeed, many personal acts by the Sign-manual, or otherwise, but, in each and all of them, covered by the counter-signature or advice of Ministers, who stand between the august Personage and the people. There is, accordingly, no more power, under the form of our Constitution, to assail the Monarch in his personal capacity, or to assail through him, the line of succession to the Crown, than there is at chess to put the king in check. ”

“ Should the melancholy event take place, that the whole royal family became extinct on the male side, the council of state shall exercise the government with regal power and authority, until the estates have chosen another royal house, and the new king has taken upon himself the government. ”

“ For, as with us the executive power of the laws is lodged in a single person, they have all the advantages of strength and dispatch, that are to be found in the most absolute monarchy; and, as the legislature of the kingdom is entrusted to three distinct powers, entirely independent of each other; first, the king; secondly, the lords spiritual and temporal, which is an aristocratical assembly of persons-51- selected for their piety, their birth, their wisdom, their valour, or their property ”

“ King—I do tell them so; England was never an elective kingdom, but an hereditary kingdom, for near these thousand years; therefore let me know by what authority I am called hither. I do stand more for the Liberty of my people, than any here that come to be my pretended Judges; and therefore let me know by what lawful authority I am seated here, and I will answer it; otherwise I will not answer it.
Lord President—Sir, how really you have managed your trust, is known: your way of answer is to interrogate the Court, which beseems not you in this condition. ”

“ If the power of an emperor, or of a king, be limited by law, the government is called a limited monarchy; if there be no legal restraint to the will of the sovereign, it is called an absolute monarchy. ”

“ While, with national consolidation, the royal authority had been approaching to absoluteness, there had been, by reaction, arising that resistance which, resulting in the Charter, subsequently initiated the prolonged struggle between the king trying to break through its restraints and his subjects trying to maintain and strengthen them. ”

“ You shall to your utmost bear faith and allegiance to the King's majesty, his heirs and lawful successors, and shall assist and defend jurisdictions and authorities granted unto his Majesty and annext unto the Crown, against all foreign princes, persons, prelates or potentates whatsoever, be it by act of Parliament or otherwise, and generally in all things you shall be as a faithful and true servant and subject ought to do. ”

“ We declare and ordain, also, that the said King shall have full power to govern freely in his kingdom and its dependencies, and shall be in the state and in the enjoyment of plenary power, in and through everything, even as he was before the aforesaid time. ”

“ Most certain it is, that, before princes give their royal assent unto the decrees of any council whatsoever, and compel men to receive and acknowledge the same, they ought, first of all, carefully to try and examine them whether they agree with the Scriptures or not ”

“ The extraordinary oath with which they accept each king, on his accession, is luminous: “We who are as good as you, and who are more powerful than you, elect you king, that you may protect our rights and liberties.” ”

“ The king names his ministers, and the law names the king. In popular or constitutional governments far more elaborate precautions are required. It is one of the real merits of the English constitution that it has solved this problem—in a roundabout way perhaps, after its fashion—but with perfect success. The ostensible seat of power is the throne, and down to a time not long distant the demise of the crown suspended all the other powers of the state. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That among us, as every body knows, this power is lodged in the king or queen, together with the lords and commons of the kingdom; and therefore all decrees whatsoever, made by that power, are to be actively or passively obeyed. That the administration, or executive part of this power, is, in England, solely entrusted with the prince; who, in administering those laws, ought to be no more resisted, than the legislative power itself. ”

“ Upon ascending the throne, the King shall take an oath in the presence of the two Chambers to observe faithfully the present constitution. Article 23. The regent, before entering on the duties of that office, shall swear fidelity to the King and faithful observance of this constitution and of the laws of the State. Article 24. All the inhabitants of the Kingdom, whatever their rank or title, shall enjoy equality before the law. All shall equally enjoy civil and political rights and be eligible to civil and military office, except as otherwise provided by law. ”

“ The will of the people, the source of all Law and of all power, has been exercised, not in the old form of personally choosing a King at every vacancy of the Crown, but by an equally lawful exercise of the national will, which has thought good to entail the Crown on a particular family. ”

“ For as the king, by the very descent of the crown, is fully inverted with all the rights and bound to all the duties of sovereignty, before his coronation; so the subject is bound to his prince by an intrinsic allegiance, before the super-induction of those outward bonds of oath, homage, and fealty ”

“ A learned prince, who knew not much of government, and practised less than he knew, did yet own, that a King is only the chief servant of the state. The law ought to be the measure of his power and actions, as much as of any private man's, and more ”

“ The lords and commons have sufficient authority, without your consent, to appoint a king: but I require you here to declare, in plain terms, whether or not you will have the duke of Glocester for your sovereign. ”

“ This royal court or Parliament was, however, not a Legislature in our modern sense of that word. It was rather a convention, in which, by a voluntary compact between the king as supreme suzerain and the greater seigneurs as his feudatories, an ordonnance or an impost was established, either throughout the entire kingdom, or in some seigneuries apart from the rest. From any such compact any seigneur might dissent on behalf of himself and his immediate vassals or, by simply absenting himself, might render the extension of it to his own fief impossible. ... ”