Royal power

“ In division and controversy moved betwixt princes upon the high sovereign power royal, more evident proof or declaration of truth, right, and God's will, may not be had than by the means of reason, authority, and victory in battles. ”

“ Who dares impede my progress? Who presume
The spirit to control which guideth me?
Still must the arrow wing its destined flight!
Where danger is, there must Johanna be;
Nor now, nor here, am I foredoomed to fall;
Our monarch's royal brow I first must see
Invested with the round of sovereignty.
No hostile power can rob me of my life,
Till I've accomplished the commands of God. ”

“ You have this day to declare yourself head of a nation. 'And now, O Lord, my God, thou hast made thy servant ruler over the people. Give unto him an understanding heart, that he may know how to go out and come in before this great people; that he may discern between good and bad. For who is able to judge this thy so great people?' were the words of a royal sovereign; and not less applicable to him who is invested with the chief magistracy of a nation, though he wear not a crown, nor the robes of royalty. ”

“ Taking a prince as a simple and normal organ of government, he analyzes the subjection of princes to their ministers, to priests, to mistresses, to the violent protests of an insubordinate people. No influence that the prince can throw off without losing his own authority, he thinks, can be a sovereign influence; but any influence which can threaten his power if he resists is a sovereign influence, the true depository of supreme political power. Sovereignty thus becomes a catalogue of influences. ”

“ I was curious to know how this prince, to whose dominions there is no access from any other country, came to think of armies, or to teach his people the practice of military discipline. But I was soon informed, both by conversation and reading their histories; for in the course of many ages they have been troubled with the same disease to which so many other governments are subject: the nobility often contending for power, the people for liberty, and the king for absolute dominion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The sovereign and absolute monarch of a populous and powerful empire, stooping from his imperial throne, flinging wide open the gates of his capital, and condescending to go out, and receive with an apparent welcome an invading foe, whom he had in vain attempted to keep out, but whom he had now the power to crush under his feet in a moment. ”

“ III. We shall with the same sincerity, reality, and constancy, in our several vocations, endeavour with our estates and lives mutually to preserve the rights and privileges of the Parliaments, and the liberties of the Kingdoms, and to preserve and defend the King's Majesty's person and authority, in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms; that the world may bear witness with our consciences of our loyalty, and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesty's just power and greatness. ”

“ What is the valuable element in monarchy which causes men constantly to turn to it as to an ideal form of government, could it but be kept pure and wise? It is its cohesion, its readiness and power to act, its abounding loyalty to certain concrete things, to certain visible persons, its concerted organization, its perfect model of progressive order. Democracy abounds with vitality ”

“ That a kind monarch has his strength employ’d,
To cater for the royal appetite,
And kept his sacred person from the fight.
Ask of the Beaver, Slave! what wholesome rules
Binds his community,—unknown to schools:
Inquire the rights he claims,—the law he gives,
In that society in which he lives?
He will instruct thee, ’tis for mutual good,
To share defence, and fellowship and food:—
That gen’ral benefit cements the tie,
Which binds his species in society. ”

“ The same principle shall be maintained mutually among the subjects of the three sovereigns, who will thus be taught to recognise that the only ruler is He to whom alone belongs power, and in whom are all the treasures of love and wisdom. ”

“ And yet, notwithstanding, in your book of a free monarchy, you do well give men to understand, that you know the plenitude of the power and right of a king, as well as _the circle of his office and duty. ”

“ We are taught, under every form of government, to apprehend usurpations, from the abuse, or from the extension of the executive power. In pure monarchies, this power is commonly hereditary, and made to descend in a determinate line. In elective monarchies, it is held for life. ”

“ It is my main object to describe her services to her country, for it is by services that all monarchs are to be judged; and all sovereigns, especially those armed with great power, are exposed to unusual temptations, which must ever qualify our judgments. ”

“ Hence the various nations, both before and after the flood, instituted governments according to human wisdom, some making choice of one form, and some of another; some giving the whole authority into the hands of a ruler, called a king, an emperor, or monarch; others reserving a portion of the power in the hands of various individuals, termed nobles or princes; others leaving the form of government more or less in the hands of the people at large, something resembling a republic. ”

“ A republic, where the people at large, either collectively or by representation, form the legislature.
The separate advantages of monarchy are unity of council, decision, secrecy, and dispatch; the military strength and energy resulting from these qualities of government; the exclusion of popular and aristocratical contentions; the preventing, by a known rule of succession, all competition for the supreme power, thereby repressing the dangerous hopes and intrigues of aspiring citizens. ”

“ The love of power and sovereignty is of this class. It has been a general belief, ever since the kingly office was established among men, that cares and anxiety were the constant attendants of royalty. ”

“ Monarch or People, we will submit ourselves to the power she herself shall organize. Is it possible that so moderate and rational a proposition should be the object of such false interpretations, in a country which reveres the idea of right and of self-government? Is it possible that its leaders should be the object of so much calumny? ”

“ But now, as I listened to the credulous monarch, it suddenly struck me what an invaluable tool such a man might prove in the hands of a political faction, or even of a foreign Power astute enough to corrupt him and inspire the oracles delivered by the spirits. ”

“ Nor could the majesty of the English Crown appear, upon any occasion, in a greater lustre, either to foreigners or subjects, than by an administration, which, producing such great effects, would discover so much power. And power being the natural appetite of princes, a limited monarch cannot so well gratify it in anything, as a strict execution of the laws. ”

“ But the forms of government which have most prevailed, are designated by the terms, monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, or republic. These words severally indicate by what persons, and in what manner, the governing power of a state is exercised. This power is usually called the sovereign, or supreme power. Where kings rule, they are called sovereign; and where the power is in the hands of the people, the people are sovereign. ”

“ Who can in reason then, or right, assume Monarchy over such as live by right His equals, if in power and splendour less, In freedom equal? ”

“ Such god-like princes indeed had some title to arbitrary power by that argument, that would prove absolute monarchy the best government, as that which God himself governs the universe by; because such kings partake of his wisdom and goodness. ”

“ If monarchy become necessary, (and they who most feel the necessity often most deeply lament it,) may we hit on some contrivance as well adapted to give the people the comfortable sense of security, while the ruler is made to feel that he holds his power only by their will. ”

“ Meanwhile he used all his powers to induce the emperor to popularise his rule, and he is said to have caused the insertion of the words “The sovereignty resides in the people; it is the source of power” in the declaration of the council of state. ”

“ The great difference between the two forms of government is, that in a republic all power and authority and all public offices and honors emanate from the people, and are exercised and held for their benefit. In a monarchy, all power and authority, all offices and honors, proceed from the monarch. ”

“ While content under the constitutional restrictions of his power, and with the prerogatives accorded to the throne, he holds his position and exercises his influence firmly and with a noble regard to what he believes to be the highest interest of the nation; and gives the strength of a mind, endowed with more than ordinary natural gifts, to the promotion of measures calculated to advance the honor, dignity and prosperity of the empire. ”

“ To uphold the weak, to put down lawless force, to lighten the chain of the slave, to sustain the honour of the British arms and British good faith; to promote the arts, sciences, and literature, to establish humane institutions, are duties of government which have been most conspicuously performed during your Royal Highness's regency. ”

“ The Power of the Crown is always lodged in a single Person, either King or Minister; and as this Person may have either a greater or less Degree of Ambition, Capacity, Courage, Popularity or Fortune, the Power, which is too great in one Hand, may become too little in another. ”

“ Monarchy So far, we have considered the prince as a moral and collective person, unified by the force of the laws, and the depositary in the State of the executive power. We have now to consider this power when it is gathered together into the hands of a natural person, a real man, who alone has the right to dispose of it in accordance with the laws. ”

“ It is probable then that at the beginning men lived thus, herding together like animals and following the lead of the strongest and bravest, the ruler's strength being here the sole limit to his power and the name we should give his rule being monarchy. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Let us see how its influence descends:—from the King to the people, to his Ministers first, from the Ministers to both Houses of Parliament, from Lords to Ladies, from the Clergy to the Laity, from the high to the low, from the rich to the poor, and ‘pierces through the body of the city, country, court’—it is beauty, birth, wit, learning, riches, numbers: it is fear and favour; it has all the splendour that can seduce, all the power that can intimidate, all the interest that can corrupt, on its side; so that the opinion of the King is the opinion of the nation ”

“ That we maintain still the state of kingdoms, in the same condition and plight wherein we have found them, without any diminishing or alteration, reserving unto our princes their majesties and worldly pre-eminence, safe and without impairing, to our possible power. ”

“ That great and most eminent power of the King, of making edicts and proclamations, which are said to be leges temporis, and by means of which our princes have used to encounter with such sudden and unexpected danger, as would not endure so much delay, as assembling the great council of the kingdom—this, which is one of the most glorious beams of majesty, most rigorous75 in commanding reverence and subjection, hath, to our unspeakable grief, been often exercised of late for the enjoining and maintaining sundry monopolies and other grants; exceeding burdensome and prejudicial to the people. ”

“ To conclude: no man can by care taking (as the Scripture saith) add a cubit to his stature, in this little model of a man's body; but in the great frame of kingdoms and commonwealths, it is in the power of princes or estates to add amplitude and greatness to their kingdoms; for by introducing such ordinances, constitutions, and customs, as we have now touched, they may sow greatness to their posterity and succession. ”

“ To have a folk just like the folk they copied,
And here the prince gave without stint or stop aid.
His realm in all had human regulations,
Ay, e’en a Constitution’s delectations,
He gave his apes the right, as Europe teaches,
In halls of delegates to make fine speeches,
Here deputies take thought about new taxes,
Bright flower of empire these, in peace and quiet:
Some, perhaps oppose: the Government relaxes:
And all refer the question to the Diet. ”

“ While the power of the Crown, supported by the aristocracy, peaceably governed the nations of Europe, society possessed, in the midst of its wretchedness, several different advantages which can now scarcely be appreciated or conceived. ”

“ Monarchy remains impregnably entrenched because the crown, in addition to comprising an accustomed feature of the governmental economy, fulfills specific ends which are recognized universally to be eminently worth while, if not indispensable. As a social, moral, and ceremonial agency, and as a visible symbol of the unity of the nation; king and court occupy an immeasurable place in the life and thought of the people ”

“ There was one great and effectual limitation on the royal authority, the knowledge that, if the patience of the nation were severely tried, the nation would put forth its strength, and that its strength would be found irresistible. ”