CONSOLS 



ro.NSTAiiu; 



429 



Midi as the Railways Clauses Consolidation Act, 

 1846, il- Titles to Land Consolidation Act, 



I Mi->. &0. 



Consols, a contraction of Consolidated Annui- 

 ties. In incurring the national debt, government 

 hoirowed money at different periods on special con- 

 lii ions, being generally the payment of an annuity 

 <>i -u Hindi percent, on the sum borrowed. Great 

 omt'iiMon arose from the variety of stocks tlms 

 created, and it was thought expedient to consolidate 

 tin-in into one fund, kept in one account at the 

 Hank of England. The Consolidated Annuities 

 Act was passed in 1749-50, consolidation being com- 

 pleted in 1757. For consolidation of the Funded 

 Debt subsequent to that period, see NATIONAL 

 DEBT. 



Consonance is a combination of notes which 

 can sound together without the harshness produced 

 l>y beats. See SOUND, Music. 

 Consonant. See LETTERS. 

 Consort* lit-erally, one who throws in his lot 

 with another. In English constitutional law, the 

 term is applied to the husband or wife of the 

 reigning sovereign, viewed not in a private but in 

 -a public capacity, as participating to a certain 

 limited extent in the prerogatives of sovereignty. 

 A queen-consort is specially so named in distinc- 

 tion from a queen -regnant, who holds the crown 

 in her own right, as Queen Elizabeth and Queen 

 Victoria, and from a queen-dowager, the widow 

 of a king. A queen-consort is in all legal pro- 

 ceedings looked upon as a feme-sole, independent 

 of her husband's control, as if she were a single 

 woman. Coke gives as the reason for this that the 

 common law would not have the king, whose care 

 is for public affairs, troubled with the domestic 

 concerns of his wife. The queen-consort has also a 

 particular revenue and peculiar exemptions and 

 privileges. One curious and ancient perquisite is 

 that, when a whale, which is a royal hsh, is taken 

 upon the coast, it by right should be divided be- 

 tween the king and the queen, the head only being 

 the king's property, and the tail the queen's. The 

 consort is in all respects a subject of tne sovereign ; 

 Accordingly the husband of a queen-regnant is ner 

 subject, and may be guilty of treason against her. 

 Up to the year 1857 the husband of Queen Victoria 

 possessed no distinctive English title, and no place 

 in court ceremonial except such as was conceded to 

 him by courtesy. In that year the title of Prince- 

 Consort was conferred upon him by letters-patent. 



Conspiracy, a combination between two or 

 more persons to perpetrate an unlawful act, or to 

 <lo a lawful act by unlawful means. A person 

 injured by conspiracy has an action at law for the 

 damage Jone, as when a man is falsely indicted of 

 a crime. In criminal law, conspiracy is a mi>de- 

 meanonr punishable by penal servitude. Few 

 things are left so doubtful in law as the point when 

 a combination for a common object becomes unlaw- 

 ful. Formerly, combinations by workmen to raise 

 the rate of wages were conspiracy, but this is no 

 longer so; and till lately, prevailing judicial opinii in 

 was that a trade-union was a ' conspiracy in re- 

 straint of trade.' See COMBINATION. 



Conspiracy was defined in the reign of Edward 

 I. by the Ordinance of Conspirators, whieh was 

 aimed at persons binding themselves together to 

 lay false indictments, and otherwise to obstruct the 

 course of justice. But the word came in time to 

 have a wider meaning, and almost every combina- 

 tion to do a criminal or even an unlawful act is now 

 an indictable conspiracy (see COMBINATION ). The 

 vagueness of the law has placed considerable power 

 in the hands of juries. Almost any act, however 

 innocent, may be treated as a crime if the jury 

 choose to impute it to some motive connected with 



an unlawful combination. Again, in proving a 

 charge of conspiracy, the prosecution may ln-gin by 

 giving evidence of the existence of a general con- 

 spiracy, and such evidence may consist of act* of 

 third parties with which the person accused had no 

 connection. The judges also have exerciwd their 

 own discretion in deciding whether the object* of a 

 combination were ' contrary to good morals and 

 public j>olicy ' or not. But if juries and judges 

 have not always exercised their discretion widely, 

 it is to In- remembered that such discretion mn-i 

 of necessity form part of the law of conspiracy. 

 Acts which are comparatively harmless when done 

 by one or two persons may become intolerably 

 oppressive when they are committed by a large 

 numl>er of persons acting in concert. See PLOT, 

 SEDITION. 



Conspiracy Bill. See POLITICAL OFFENCES. 



Constable (Lat. constabulus), the title of an 

 ancient officer, originally of high military rank, but 

 now generally an officer of the peace. The older 

 writers, as Coke and Selden, fancifully derive the 

 word from koning-stapel, ' staff and stay of the king.' 

 It represents, however, the Latin comes stabiai, 

 ' count of the stable,' an officer who in the later 

 Roman empire was at first charged with the care 

 of the stables, and afterwards became captain of a 

 military force, and chief officer of the army. The 

 title was borrowed from the Romans by the Franks. 

 The Constable of France rose gradually in import- 

 ance from the comparatively modest position of an 

 officer of the household, till at last lie became ex 

 ojRcio the commander-in-chief of the army in the 

 absence of the monarch, the highest judge in mili- 

 tary offences and in all questions of chivalry and 

 honour, and the supreme regulator and arbitrator 

 in all matters connected with tilts, tournaments, 

 and all martial displays. The office was suppressed 

 by Louis XIII. in 1626. Under Napoleon, the con- 

 stable was the fifth of the great dignitaries of the 

 empire. The office was again abolished on the 

 restoration of the Bourbons. But besides the 

 Constable of France, almost all the great vassals 

 of the crown had constables who filled analogous 

 offices at their minor courts. 



The Lord High Constable of England appears 

 shortly after the Conquest as the seventh great 

 officer of the crown, and formerly a judge in the 

 Court of Chivalry. The office went by inheritance 

 to the Earls of Hereford and Essex, and after- 

 wards in the line of Stafford. When Edward 

 Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, was attainted in 

 1521, the office became forfeit, and has never since 

 been granted except for a special ceremony of state, 

 as when it was conferred on the Duke of Welling- 

 ton for the coronation of Queen Victoria. The 

 High Constable of Scotland was an officer very 

 similar to the Constable of France and England. 

 The office, now purely honorary, in 1314 was 

 made hereditary in the noble family of Erroll, 

 and is reserved both in the Treaty of Union 

 and in the statute of George II. altolishing heredi- 

 tary jurisdictions. The High Constable is bv 

 birth the first subject in Scotland after the blood- 

 royal. 



The governor of a royal castle was often called 

 Constable; see TOWER OF LONDON. The Con- 

 stables of the Hundred, and of the Vill, were the 

 predecessors of the high and pet t y constables of later 

 times. The statute of Winchester (1285) ordains 

 that in every hundred or franchise t lit re shall be 

 chosen two constables, to make the view of armour, 

 and to see to the conservation of the peace. The 

 petty constable exercised similar functions within 

 the narrower limits of the township or parish, and 

 was subordinate to the high constableof the hundred. 

 The high constables were formerly appointed by the 



