Page:Debrett's Illustrated Peerage and Titles of Courtesy.djvu/57

ix TITLES, ORDERS AND DEGREES OP PRECEDENCE AND DIGNITY, First in honour and dignity, as in power indeed, the seat and fountain of al three is THE SOVEREIGN, THB KOYAL CROWN. THE HERALDIC CROWN. who, in addition to the well-known powers habitually exercised by the Crows, possesses, according to Camden, " many rights and privileges peculiar to majesty, termed by the learned lawyers sacra sacrorum, that is, sacred and individual, or inseparable, because they cannot be severed ; and the ordinary royal prerogatives, termed the flowers of his crown, in which respect they affirm that the regal material crown is adorned with flowers. Some of these are held by positive or written law others which, by right of custom, by a silent consent of all men without law, prescription of time has allowed, the King justly enjoys." Amongst the more clearly defined prerogatives of the British monarch are those of convoking, adjourning, removing, and dissolving Parliament, refusing assent to bills, without which assent they cannot become law, and increasing the numbers of the members of either House, either by creating new peers or enabling towns to send members. As respects the Commons, however, this power has long been obsolete. The Sovereign declares war at pleasure; chooses and appoints all com- manders and officers by land and sea ; all judges, magistrates, counsellors, and officers of state, Archbishops, Bishops, and high ecclesiastical dignitaries ; bestows all public honours, pardons criminals, and exercises many other powers, usually by the advice of the Cabinet Ministers, who, however, alone are responsible, the theory of English law being that the Sovereign can commit no wrong. Another theory of our law is that the King (or Queen) never dies substantially, that the throne is never vacant, the succession of the heir being instantaneous. Hence, observes a constitu- tional writer, " the ceremony of a coronation is merely a solemn recognition and confirmation of the royal descent, and consequent right of accession, and is not necessary for the security of the title to the crown. It is, however, highly essential, inasmuch as it tends to a formal establishment of those rights which the people claim from the monarch in return for the du+-" and allegiance they are bound to observe towards the new Sovereion."