K I 
that tins inheritance may fometimes be broken through ; 
or, that there may be a fuccejjor, without being the heir of 
the king. And this is fo extremely reafonable, that, with¬ 
out fuch a power lodged fomewhere, our polity would 
be very defective. For, let us barely fuppofe fo melan¬ 
choly a cafe, as that the heir-apparent fliould be a luna¬ 
tic, an idiot, or otherwife incapable of reigning; how 
miferable would the condition of the nation be, if he were 
«lfo incapable of being fet afide ! It is therefore neceflary 
that this power lhould be lodged fomewhere; and yet the 
inheritance and regal dignity would be very precarious 
indeed, if this power were exprefsly and avowedly lodged 
in the hands of the fubjeft only, to be exerted whenever 
prejudice, caprice, or difcontent, fliould happen to take 
the lead. Confequently it can no-where be fo properly 
lodged as in the two houfes of parliament, by and with 
the confent of the reigning king ; who it is not to be 
fuppofed will agree to any thing improperly prejudicial to 
the rights of his own defendants. And therefore in the 
king, lords, and commons, and parliament aflenibled, our 
laws have exprefsly lodged it. 
4.. However the crown may be limited or transferred, 
it thill retains its defcendible quality, and becomes here¬ 
ditary in the wearer of it. And hence in our law the 
king is faid never to die in his political capacity ; though, 
in common with other men, he is fubjedt to mortality in 
his natural; becaufe, immediately upon the natural death 
of Henry, William, or George, the king furvives in his 
fuccelfor. For the right of the crown veils, to injlanti , 
upon his heir; either the hares natus, if the courfe of de- 
fcent remains unimpeached, or the hares faElus , if the in¬ 
heritance be under any particular fettlement. So that there 
can be no interregnum ; but, as fir Matthew Hale obferves, 
the right of fovereignty is fully veiled in the fuccelfor 
by the very defeent of the crown, i Hijl. P.C. 6x. Hence 
the llatutes pafled in the firft year after the reftoration of 
Charles II. are always called the a£ls in the 12th year of 
his reign; and all the other legal proceedings of that reign 
are reckoned from the year 164.8, and not from 1660. 
Thus the Form of Prayer, with Thankfgiving, which was 
fet forth as foon as Charles II. was feated on the throne, 
is declared to be in confequence of an aiit of parliament 
made in the twelfth year of that king’s reign. Cookjons 
Prayer Book, p. 658. 
On this principle, that the king commences his reign 
from the day of the death of his anceftor, it hath been 
held, that compafiing his death before coronation, or even 
before proclamation, is compaflingof the king’s death with¬ 
in the llatute of 25 Edw. III. flat. 5. c. 2 ; he being king 
prefently,, and the proclamation and coronation only ho¬ 
nourable ceremonies for the future notification thereof. 
3 Injl. 7. 1 Hale's Hijl. P. C. 101. See the article Treason. 
In thefe four points confilts the conftitutional notion of 
hereditary right to the throne ; which is Hill further elu¬ 
cidated, and made clear beyond ail difpute, by the learned 
commentator from whom much of the foregoing and fol¬ 
lowing abftraft is abridged, in a Ihort liiftorical view which 
he gives, of the fucceflion to the crown of England, from 
Egbert to the prelent time ; of the doctrines of our an¬ 
cient lawyers ; and of the leveral llatutes that have from 
time to time been made, to create, to declare, to confirm, 
to limit, or to bar, the hereditary title to the throne. In 
the purfuit of this inquiry he clearly fliows, that from the 
days of Egbert, the firft foie monarch of this kingdom, to 
the prefent, the four cardinal maxims above mentioned 
have ever been held the conilitutional canons of fucceflion 
to the crown. It is true, this fucceflion, through fraud 
or force, or fometimes through neceflity, when in hoftile 
times the crown defeended on a minor, or the like, has 
been frequently fufpended ; but has generally at lalt re¬ 
turned back into the old hereditary channel, though 
fometimes a confiderable period has intervened. And, 
even in thofe inltances where the fucceflion has been vio¬ 
lated, the crown has ever been looked upon as hereditary 
in the wearer of it. Of -which the ufurpers themfelves 
Vol. XI. No. 790. 
N G. 729 
were fo fenfible, that they for the mod part endeavoured 
to vamp up fome feeble lhow of a title by defeent, in or¬ 
der to amufe the people, while they gained the pofi'eflion 
of the kingdom ; and, when poffeflion was once gained, 
they confidered it as the purchafe or acquifition of a new 
eflate of inheritance, and tranfmitted, or endeavoured to 
traufmit, it to their own pollerity, by a kind of hereditary 
right of ufurpation. See 1 Comm. c. 3. p. 190—7, 
If the throne be at any time vacant, (which may hap-- 
pen by other means befides that of abdication ; as if all 
the blood-royal fliould fail, without any fucceflbr appoint¬ 
ed by parliament,) the right of difpofing of this vacancy 
feems naturally to refuit to tire houfes of lords and com¬ 
mons, the trullees and reprefentatives of the nation. For 
there are no other hands in which it can fo properly be. 
entrulled ; and there is a neceflity of its being entrufted 
fomewhere, elfe the whole frame of government mull be 
difl'olved and perifli. 
The preamble to the Bill of Rights exprefsly declares, 
that “ the lords fpiritual and temporal, and commons, af- 
fembled at Wellminfler, lawfully, fully, and freely, repre- 
fent all the eftates of the people of this realm.” It was 
juflly faid, when the royal prerogatives were fufpended 
during his majefty’s illnefs in 1788, that the two houfes 
of parliament were the organs by which the people ex- 
prelfed their will. And in the houfe of commons, on the 
16th of December in that year, two declaratory relolutions 
were accordingly pafled, importing, 1. The interruption 
of the royal authority ; 2. That it was the duty of the 
two houfes of parliament to provide the means of fupply- 
ing that defefl. On the 23d of the fame month a third 
relolution pafled, empowering the lord chancellor of Great 
Britain to affix the great feal to fuch bill of limitations as 
might be neceflary to reftridl the power of the future re¬ 
gent to be named by parliament: this bill was accordingly 
brought forward, not without confiderable oppofition to 
its provifions, as w'ell from private motives as on political 
grounds; and at length, happily for the public, arrefted 
in its progrefs by the providential recovery of his majefty 
in March 1789. It is obfervable, however, that no bill 
was afterwards introduced to guard againft a future emer¬ 
gency of a fnnilar nature ; on the grounds undoubtedly 
of delicacy to a monarch univerfally beloved, and in the 
confidence of the omnipotence of parliament if neceflarily 
called upon again. And accordingly, upon a recurrence 
of the fame calamity in the year 1810, the fame ground 
was gone over again ; firft, by refolutions pafled on the 
20th of December in that year ; and, fecondly, by a bill 
of limitations and rellriflions, to which the lord-chancellor 
did affix the great feal on the 5th of February, 1S11 ; and, 
by the expiry of that bill and thofe reftridtions on the 
18th of February, 1812, the prince of Wales now enjoys 
the full powers of regent. 
Towards the end of king William’s reign, the king and 
parliament thought it neceflary to exert their power of li¬ 
miting and appointing the fucceflion, in order to prevent 
the vacancy of the throne which mull have enfued upon 
three deaths, as no farther provilion was made at the re¬ 
volution than for the iifue of queen Mary, queen Anne, 
and king William. It 'had been previoufly, by the flat. 
1 Will, and Mary, 2. c. 2, enadted, that every perfon who 
lhould be reconciled to or hold communion with the fee 
of Rome, who fliould profefs the popifti religion, or who 
fliould marry a papill, fliould be excluded, and for ever 
incapable to inherit, pofiefs,or enjoy, the crown; and that 
in fuch cafe the people lhould be abfolved from their al¬ 
legiance [fo fuch perfon], and the crown lhould defcend 
to fuch perfons, being proteftants, as would have inherited 
the fame, in cafe the perfon 10 reconciled, holding com¬ 
munion, profefiing,or marrying, were naturally dead. To 
act therefore confidently w ith themfelves, and at the fame 
time pay as much regard to the old hereditary line as 
their former refolutions would admit, they turned their 
eyes on the princefs Sophia, electrefs and duchefs-do wager 
of Hanover. For, upon the impending extinction of til® 
8 Z proteftant 
