148 CASE OF THE POST-NATI OF SCOTLAND. 



induceth the natural person of the king with these 

 perfections : That the king in law shall never be 

 said to be within age : that his blood shall never be 

 corrupted ; and that if he were attainted before, the 

 very assumption of the crown purgeth it. That the 

 king shall not take but by matter of record, although 

 he take in his natural capacity as upon a gift in tail. 

 That his body in law shall be said to be as it were 

 immortal ; for there is no death of the king in law, 

 but a demise, as it is termed : with many other the 

 like privileges and differences from other natural 

 persons too long to rehearse, the rather because the 

 question laboureth not in that part. But on the 

 contrary part let us see what operations the king s 

 natural person hath upon his crown and body politic ; 

 of which the chiefest and greatest is, that it causeth 

 the crown to go by descent which is a thing strange 

 and contrary to the course of all corporations, which 

 evermore take in succession and not by descent ; for 

 no man can shew me in all the corporations of 

 England, of what nature soever, whether they con 

 sist of one person or of many ; or whether they be 

 temporal or ecclesiastical, any one takes to him 

 and his heirs, but all to him and his successors. And 

 therefore here you may see what a weak course that 

 is, to put cases of bishops and parsons, and the like, 

 and to apply them to the crown. For the king 

 takes to him and his heirs in the manner of a 

 natural body, and the word, successors, is but 

 superfluous : and where that is used, that is ever 



