590 



CROWN 



CROYDON 



THE CROWN is a terra often employed to signify 

 the state and the matters under control of the 

 executive authority. Thus, in the interests of the 

 state there are crown-ministers, crown-lawyers, 

 crown-officers, crown-lands, &c. the term, in no 

 instance, having any special connection with the 

 sovereign personally. In Scotland, certain high 

 crimes are technically called Pleas of the Crown. 

 These are four in number murder, robbery; rape, 

 and wilful fire-raising and fall within the jurisdic- 

 tion of the High Court of Justiciary. Likewise, in 

 Scotland, there is a functionary styled crown-agent. 

 He is a practising law-agent or solicitor, who, 

 under the Lord Advocate and his deputes, takes 

 charge of criminal proceedings. His duty is to 

 receive from the procurators-fiscal of the different 

 counties the precognitions which they have taken, 

 and to lay these precognitions before the lawyers 

 for the crown, that they may determine whether 

 there is ground sufficient to call for a prosecution. 

 He also expedes indictments and criminal letters, 

 and otherwise discharges the duties of an agent in 

 preparing and assisting in the conduct of trials 

 before the High Court of Justiciary. The appoint- 

 ment of the crown-agent is with the Lord Advocate, 

 and ceases with the administration. 



CROWN CASES RESERVED, COURT FOR. See 

 APPEAL. 



CROWN-SOLICITOR, the solicitor to the Treasury, 

 who, in state prosecutions in England, acts as 

 solicitor for the crown in preparing the prosecution. 

 In Ireland there are crown-solicitors attached to 

 each circuit, whose duties correspond in some 

 degree to those of the Procurators-fiscal (q.v.) and 

 crown-agent in Scotland. In England there are 

 no analogous officers, and prosecutions are conse- 

 quently conducted by solicitors appointed either 

 by the parish, or by private parties bound over by 

 the magistrates to prosecute. But in cases of great 

 importance to the public, such as unusual or mon- 

 strous crimes, it is of frequent occurrence that the 

 Solicitor to the Treasury takes charge of the case 

 and instructs counsel. 



CROWN DEBTS. It is a prerogative of the 

 crown to take precedence of all other creditors, and 

 in England, to recover its debts by a summary 

 process called an extent. By 33 Henry VIII. , chap. 

 39, this preference is given over all creditors who 

 have not obtained judgment (meaning in Scotland, 

 the execution of diligence) for their debts before 

 the commencement of the crown's process ; and 

 the Act 6 Anne, chap. 26, extended the law of 

 England in this respect to Scotland, the old writ 

 of extent being abolished in 1856. The rule in 

 Scotland was limited to movable or personal 

 property, and the crown has no privilege over 

 a subject in a competition for Heritage. It 

 obtains, however, as opposed to the landlord's 

 Hypothec (q.v.). Mercantile sequestration does 

 not discharge crown debts except with consent of 

 the Treasury ; and in a sequestration the crown 

 has a statutory preference for one year's arrears of 

 income and property tax, and assessed taxes. A 

 similar preference is given for local rates. See 

 EXTENT, EXCHEQUER. 



CROWN-LANDS must be distinguished from such 

 rights as that in the seashore, which are merely 

 held by the sovereign in trust for the people ; and 

 also from that portion of the royal patrimony which 

 consists of such reserved rights as mines, salmon- 

 fishings, &c. The crown-lands are called annexed 

 Eroperty in Scotland, and demesne lands in Eng- 

 ind, and are of course also distinct from the 

 private estate of the person who happens to be 

 sovereign. They are now contracted within narrow 

 limits, having been almost entirely granted away 

 to subjects. King William III. so impoverished 

 the crown in this manner, that an act was passed 



in 1703 voiding all grants or leases from the crown 

 of royal manors, or other possessions connected 

 with land, for a period exceeding thirty -one years. 

 At a much earlier period ( 1455, chap. 41 ) a Scottish 

 statute had rendered the consent of parliament 

 necessary to the alienation of the property of the 

 crown, but the policy adopted of extensive subin- 

 feudation to encourage agriculture had the effect of 

 greatly diminishing the relative value of crown- 

 lands not actually given away ; and in Scotland 

 they now consist mainly of a few castles, palaces, 

 and feu-duties. The superintendence of such pro- 

 perty as still belongs to the crown is now vested 

 in commissioners appointed for the purpose, called 

 the Commissioners of Woods, Forests, and Land 

 Revenues. See WOODS AND FORESTS. In some 

 British colonies unallotted ground is nominally 

 crown-land. Thus the sale and settlement of land 

 in New South Wales was regulated by the Crown 

 Lands Act of 1884. 



Crown, in Architecture, a species of spire or 

 lantern, formed by converging flying-buttresses. 

 Familiar examples in Scotland are the crowns of 

 St Giles's, Edinburgh, and King's College, Aber- 

 deen ; south of the Tweed the only old crown is 

 that of St Nicholas's Cathedral at Newcastle. 



Crown Imperial. See FRITILLARY. 



Crown Pieces of silver, of the value of five 

 shillings, were introduced into the English coinage 

 by Henry VIII. They have a standard weight of 

 436 '56 grains. None were coined from 1861 till 

 1887, but since then they have again been stnick. 

 The name crown is also used as the translation 

 of the French 6cu, which varied in value from 6 

 francs ( or livres ) to 3 francs. 



Crown Point, a post-village of New York, 

 on Lake Champlain, near the site of a British fort 

 of the same name surprised and captured by Colonel 

 Ethan Allen in 1775. 



Crown-work, in Fortification, is an outwork 

 consisting of two Bastion (q.v.) fronts connected 

 with the main work by long flanks, so that its plan 

 resembles somewhat the outline of a crown v 



Crow's-feet. See CALTROP. 



Crow-Stone, the top stone of the gable-end of 

 a building. See CORBIE STEPS. 



Crowther, SAMUEL ADJAI, Bishop of the 

 Niger territory, whose native name is Adjai, was 

 born in Ochugu, to the east of the kingdom of 

 Dahomey, in 1812, was carried off' as a slave in 

 1819, am! after having been bartered and sold more 

 than once, was taken by a British man-of-war and 

 landed at Sierra-Leone in 1822. He was placed 

 under a missionary for training at Bathurst, and in 

 1825 professed his adherence to Christianity, taking 

 his present name after a London vicar. He was 

 next placed in charge of a mission school at 

 Regent's Town ; was with the first and second 

 Niger expeditions (1841, 1854); visited London in 

 1842, when, as the result of some further training, he 

 was ordained by the Bishop of London, entered 

 with enthusiasm upon his missionary labours, and 

 was consecrated Bishop of the Niger territory in 

 1864. He was D.D. of Oxford, author of several na- 

 tive tracts, and translated the Bible into the Yoruba 

 language. Died in 1891. See his Life ( 1888). 



Croydqn, a town in Surrey, 10| miles S. of 

 London Bridge, yet practically a suburb of London. 

 It lies on the edge of the chalk and plastic clay, 

 near the Banstead Downs, at the source of the 

 Wandle, hence its name Croindene ( Fr. , ' chalkhill ' ) 

 in Domesday. The archbishops of Canterbury 

 had a palace here from the Conquest till 1757. Its 

 Perpendicular hall ( 1452) and chapel ( 1633-63) were 

 purchased by the Duke of Newcastle in 1887 and 

 presented to the Sisters of the Church Extension 



