§ II.-MAXIMS RELATING TO THE CROWN.

The principal attributes of the Crown are sovereignty or pre-eminence, perfection, and perpetuity; and these attributes are attached to the wearer of the crown by the constitution, and may be said to form his constitutional character and royal dignity. On the other hand, the principal duty of the sovereign is to govern his people according to law; and this is not only consonant to the principles of nature, of liberty, of reason, and of society, but has always been esteemed an express part of the common law of England, even when prerogative was at the highest. In the pages immediately following are collected some of the more important technical rules, embodying the above general attributes of the Crown, with their meaning and qualifications (a).

REX NUNQUAM MORITUR. (Branch. Max., 5th ed., 197).The king never dies.

The law ascribes to the king, in his political capacity, an absolute immortality; and, immediately upon the decease of the reigning prince in his natural capacity, the kingly dignity and the prerogatives and politic capacities of the supreme magistrate, by act of law, without any interregnum (b) or interval, vest at once in his successor, who is, eo instante, king, to all intents and purposes. And

(a) See, on the subject of this section, Mr. Chitty's Treatise on the Prerogative of the Crown, particularly chaps. i, ii, xv, xvi; Mr. Serjt. Stephen's Com., vol. ii, pp. 494-504;

and Fortescue de Laud. Leg. Ang., by Amos, chap. ix.

(b) In Angliâ non est interregnum. (Jenk. Cent. 205).

so tender is the law of supposing even a possibility of his death, that his natural dissolution is generally called his demise demissio regis vel corona-an expression which signifies merely a transfer of property (c); and when we speak of the demise of the Crown, we mean only, that, in consequence of the disunion of the king's natural body from his body politic, the kingdom is transferred or demised to his successor; and so the royal dignity remains perpetual (d). It has, however, usually been thought prudent, when the heir-apparent has been very young, to appoint a protector, guardian, or regent, for a limited time; but the very necessity of such extraordinary provision is sufficient to demonstrate the truth of that maxim of the common law, that in the king is no minority,-and, therefore, he has no legal guardian; and such provision is to be considered only as a law framed to meet a particular emergency (e).

REX NON POTEST PECCARE. (2 Roll. R. 304).-The king can do no wrong.

maxim.

It is an ancient and fundamental principle of the English Meaning of constitution, that the king can do no wrong (f). But this maxim must not be understood to mean, that the king is above the laws, in the unconfined sense of those words, and that every thing he does is of course just and lawful. It only means, first, that the sovereign, individually and personally, and in his natural capacity, is independent of and is not amenable to any other earthly power or jurisdiction, and that whatever may be amiss in the condition of public affairs is not therefore to be imputed to the king, so as to

(c) 1 Bla. Com. 249; Chit. Pre. Crown, 5.

(d) 1 Plowd. 177, 231.

(e) 2 Steph. Com. 498, and n. (k).
(f) Jenk. Cent. 9, 308.

If,

render him answerable for it personally to his people. Secondly, it means, that the prerogative of the Crown extends not to do any injury, because it is created for the benefit of the people, and, therefore, cannot be exerted to their prejudice (g),—it being a fundamental general rule, that the king cannot sanction any act forbidden by law; and it is in this point of view that he is under, and not above the laws,that he is bound by them equally with his subjects (h). therefore, the sovereign command an unlawful act to be done, the offence of the instrument is not thereby indemnified; for, though the king is not under the coercive power of the law, yet, in many cases, his commands are under the directive power of the law, which, consequently, makes the act itself invalid if unlawful, and so renders the instrument of the execution thereof obnoxious to the punishment of the law (i).

The king, moreover, is not only incapable of doing wrong, but even of thinking wrong. Whenever, therefore, it happens, that, by misinformation or inadvertence, the Crown has been induced to invade the private rights of any of its subjects, as by granting any franchise or privilege to a subject contrary to reason, or in any way prejudicial to the commonwealth or a private person,--the law will not suppose the king to have meant either an unwise or an injurious action, but declares that the king was deceived in his grant; and, thereupon, such grant is rendered void, merely upon the supposition of fraud and deception either by or upon those agents whom the Crown has thought proper to employ (k). In like manner, also, the king's grants are void

(g) 1 Bla. Com. 246; 3 Bla. Com. 254; Chit. Pre. Crown, 5.

(h) Chit. Pre. Crown, 5; Jenk. Cent. 203. See Fortescue de Laud.

Leg. Ang., by Amos, p. 28.
(i) 1 Hale, P. C. 43, 44.

(k) 1 Bla. Com. 246; 2 Steph. Com. 500; Gledstanes v. The Eart

matters

against the

whenever they tend to prejudice the course and benefit of public justice (1). And in this manner it is, that, while the sovereign himself is, in a personal sense, incapable of doing wrong, yet his acts may, in themselves, be contrary to law, and, on that account, be avoided or set aside by the law (m). On the same principle, no suit or action can be brought Remedy against the sovereign, even in civil measures; and as to any Crown. cause of complaint which a subject may happen to have against the sovereign in respect of some personal injury of a private nature, but distinct from a mere claim of property, the sovereign is not personally chargeable, nor can he be subjected to the usual common-law proceedings which may be instituted between subject and subject (n). The law will, in such a case, presume that the subject cannot have sustained any such personal wrong from the Crown, because it feels itself'incapable of furnishing any adequate remedy,—and want of right and want of remedy are the same thing in law (0).

With respect to injuries to the rights of property, these can scarcely be committed by the Crown, except through the medium of its agents, and by misinformation or inadvertency, and the law has furnished the subject with a decent and respectful mode of terminating the invasion of his rights, by informing the king of the true state of the matter in dispute, viz. by Petition of Right; and as it presumes, that to know of any injury and to redress it are inseparable in the royal breast, it then issues, as of course, in the king's own name, his orders to his judges to do justice to the party aggrieved (p).

of Sandwich, 5 Scott, N. R., 719; R. v. Kempe, 1 Lord Raym. 49, cited Id. 720.

(1) Chit. Pre. Crown, 385. (m) 2 Steph. Com. 500.

(n) Chit. Pre. Crown, 339, 340; 3 Bla. Com. 255; 4 Bla. Com. 33;

Jenk. Cent. 78; Viscount Canterbury
v. Reg., 7 Jur. 224.

(2) Chit. Pre. Crown, 340; and
see 2 Steph. Com. 501.

(p) 3 Bla. Com. 255; Chit. Pre. Crown, 40, where the nature of, and mode of proceeding on a Petition of

If, lastly, it be asked, what remedy is afforded to the subject for such public oppressions, or acts of tyranny, as have not, in fact, been instigated by bad advisers, but have proceeded from the personal delinquency of the monarch himself, the answer is, that there is no legal remedy, and that to such cases, so far as the ordinary course of law is concerned, the maxim must be applied, that the sovereign can do no wrong (q).

NON POTEST REX GRATIAM FACERE CUM INJURIA ET DAMNO ALIORUM. (3 Inst. 236).-The king cannot confer a favour on one subject, which occasions injury and loss to others.

It is an ancient and constant rule of law (r), that the king's grants are invalid when they destroy or derogate from rights, privileges, or immunities previously vested in another subject: the Crown, for example, cannot enable a subject to erect a market or fair so near that of another person as to affect his interests therein (s). On the same principle, the Crown cannot pardon an offence against a penal statute after information brought, for thereby the informer has acquired a private property in his part of the penalty (t). Nor can the king pardon a private nuisance, while it remains unredressed, or so as to prevent an abatement of it, though afterwards he may remit the fine; and the reason is, that, though the prosecution is vested in the Crown, to

Right are treated of at length. See also Doe d. Legh v. Roe, 8 M. & W. 579; and the recent cases of the Baron de Bode, 4 Jurist, 645, and Viscount Canterbury, 7 Jurist, 224.

(2) 2 Steph. Com. 502, 503; 1 Bla. Com., by Stewart, 256.

(r) 3 Inst. 236; Vaugh. R. 338.

(8) Chit. Pre. Crown, 119, 132, 386; The Earl of Rutland's case, 8 Rep. 57; Alcock v. Cooke, 5 Bing. 340; Gledstones v. The Earl of Sandwich, 5 Scott, N. R., 689, 719. (1) 4 Bla. Com. 399.