arise from so materially curtailing the power and patronage of the Crown, he answered by observing that "if the Regent's administration was conducted on good principles, it would meet with general support, and if its measures were unconstitutional, there should be no facility given to carrying them through." Notwithstanding powerful arguments to show that our constitution might suffer serious detriment from the election of a Regent by the two Houses, with such powers as they were pleased to bestow upon him, and from tampering with the prerogatives of the Crown, which were not supposed to be greater than were necessary to carry on the government for the public good, Lord Camden carried his motion by a majority of 94 to 68; but a strong protest was signed by the Duke of York, and almost all the Peers who voted in the minority.* CHAP. CXLVII. 1789. "Phantom Seal." Lord Camden's next speech was respecting the mode in Feb. 2. which the Regent should be "elected or appointed." He declared that, "amidst a choice of evils, the proposal of his of the Great Majesty's ministers, which he was to explain, appeared to him to be the least objectionable, and most fit to be adopted, because the most reconcileable to the principles [quære, forms?] of the constitution. He was open to conviction, and was ready to adopt any other which their Lordships might deem preferable; but something must immediately be done to resuscitate the legislature, and to rescue the people from the condition, of which they were beginning loudly to complain,― of being without a government. He was aware that the plan he was to recommend had already been made the subject of much ridicule. A phantom!' 'a fiction!' 'a forgery!' and various other contemptuous appellations, had been bestowed upon it. Let those who objected to it in this House show how, otherwise, the constitution could again be put into a state of vigour and activity. The delay 6 • 27 Parl. Hist. 1075-1094. In the course of this debate Lord Camden got into a scrape, in obviating the objection to the suspension of the power of making Peers, by saying, that "on any urgent call for a peerage it might be conferred by act of parliament " -a proceeding which appeared to their Lordships so unconstitutional and republican, that he was obliged to explain and retract. CXLVII. CHAP. that had already taken place had revolted the public mind, and the nation loudly called on Parliament to interpose its authority. But, circumstanced as it at present was, Parliament could not take a single step;-without the King it was a mere headless, inanimate trunk; -the royal assent was essential to legislation. The King upon his throne in that House, or by Commissioners appointed under the Great Seal, must sanction their proceedings, which otherwise had taken was to open no legal operation. The first step to be CXLVII. irrevocably given; it was the clavis Regni, the mouth of CHAP. royal authority, the organ by which the Sovereign spoke his will. Such was its efficacy, that even if the Lord Chancellor, by caprice, put the Great Seal to any commission, it could not afterwards be questioned. In so doing he would be guilty of a misdemeanour, but the Judges must give effect to it. If an act of parliament receive the royal assent by a commission under the Great Seal, "Le Roy le voet" being so pronounced, it is added to the statute-book, and becomes the law of the land, which no one may question. Thus the phantom' would prove a substantial benefit, and the 'fiction' would end in the reality, which all good men desired." His Lordship then went on to explain, and to rely upon, the precedent at the commencement of the reign of Henry VI., when the Sovereign, being an infant of nine months old, the Great Seal was placed in his hand, or his hand was placed on the Great Seal, and it was supposed to be given by him to the Master of the Rolls; whereupon many commissions were sealed by it, and the government was carried on under its authority. He concluded by moving, "That it is expedient and necessary that letters patent for opening the Parliament should pass under the Great Seal." t 1789. fictitious sion. At the request of the Duke of York, Lord Camden agreed Feb. 3. that the names of the Prince of Wales and of the other Parliament Princes of the blood, should be omitted from the commission, opened as they all condemned this mode of proceeding, and the under a motion was carried without a division. Accordingly, on the commisfollowing day, a commission, under the Great Seal, was produced in the name of his most gracious Majesty George III., by which his Majesty was made to declare, that "it not being convenient for him to be personally present, he authorised certain Commissioners to open the Parliament in his name, and to declare the causes of Parliament being summoned by him." The Commons, attending at the bar of the House of Lords to hear the commission read, the Commissioners de Till repealed by scire facias. 27 Parl. Hist. 1123-1133. CHAP. CXLVII. May 5. 1789. Consideration of the question how the royal au thority is to on the in capacity of the Sovereign. clared the causes of the summons to be, "to provide for the care of his Majesty's royal person, and for the administration of the royal authority." The two Houses did not go through the form of agreeing upon an humble address to his Majesty, in answer to his gracious speech by his Commissioners; but the Regency Bill was immediately brought in. "The Phantom" did not a second time appear to make the bill a law; for, after it had passed the Commons, and while it was in Committee in the Lords, it was stopped by the King's convalescence; and George III. remained above twenty years on the throne before there was such a recurrence of his malady as to render it necessary to resort to similar proceedings.* - From the course then adopted, and carried through, I presume, it is now to be considered part of our constitution, that if ever, during the natural life of the Sovereign, he is unable, by mental disease, personally to exercise the royal functions, the deficiency is to be supplied by the two Houses be exercised of Parliament, who, in their discretion, will probably elect the heir apparent Regent, under such restrictions as they may please to propose, but who may prefer the head of the ruling faction, and at once vest in him all the prerogatives of the Crown. On the two occasions referred to in the reign of George III., the next heir being at enmity with the King and his ministers, this was considered the loyal and courtly doctrine, and from its apparent advancement of the rights of Parliament, there was no difficulty in casting odium upon those who opposed it: but I must avow that my deliberate opinion coincides with that of Burke, Fox, and Erskine, who pronounced it to be unsupported by any precedent, and to be in accordance with the principles of the Polish, not the English, monarchy. The two Houses of Parliament would be the proper tribunal to pronounce that the Sovereign is unable to act; but then, as if he were naturally, as well as civilly, dead, the next heir ought, as of right, to assume the government as Regent, ever ready to lay it down on the Sovereign's restoration to reason, - in the same way as our Lady Victoria would have returned to a private *27 Parl. Hist. 1297. See Parl. Deb. xviii. 830. 1102.; ante, Vol. I. 22. CXLVII. station if, after her accession, there had appeared posthumous CHAP issue of William IV. by his Queen. It is easy to point out possible abuses by the next heir as Regent, to the prejudice of the living Sovereign,—but there may be greater abuses of the power of election imputed to the two Houses,-whereby a change of dynasty might be effected. I conceive, therefore, that the Irish Parliament, in 1789, acted more constitutionally in acknowledging the right of the next heir, — in scouting the fiction of a commission, or royal assent, from the insane Sovereign, -- and in addressing the Prince of Wales to take upon himself the government as Regent. Defence of den for continuing to Lord Cam support Mr. Pitt. After the King's recovery Lord Camden adhered (with one memorable exception) to the resolution he had announced, that, on account of his advanced age, he would no longer take part in the debates of the House of Lords; but he remained in his office, and steadily supported the administration by his councils. It has been suggested that, in his extended connection with Mr. Pitt, he abandoned the liberal principles for which he had so long struggled. But this charge is, I think, entirely without foundation. He had been called away to a better state of existence before the commencement of the trials for high treason, which disgraced the country in the end of the year 1794,—and I am not aware of any measure adopted with his sanction which might not have been brought forward under Lord Chatham or Lord Rockingham. Bishop Watson accuses him of an entire subserviency at this time to the supposed illiberal policy of the government. "I asked A.D. 1790. him," says the Bishop, "if he foresaw any danger likely to result to the Church establishment from the repeal of the Test and Corporation acts; he answered at once, none whatever; Pitt was wrong in refusing the application of the Dissenters, but he must now be supported.""I never attach much importance to what is supposed to have fallen from any man in the laxity of private talk; but supposing this reminiscence to be quite correct, and that no qualification or circumstance to vary the effect is forgotten, might not the President of the Council, without sacrificing the Dissenters or his own consistency, hesitate about breaking up the government on their account, and wait for a more favourable 6 |