traordinary regard and respect ;* but, after that degree is past, they fall into the rank of ordinary subjects, and are seldom considered any farther, unless called to the succession upon failure of the nearer lines.

The younger sons and daughters of the King and other branches of the Royal Family, who are not in the immediate line of succession, were therefore little farther regarded by the ancient law than to give them, to a certain degree, precedence before all peers and public officers, as well ecclesiastical as temporal.

This is done by the statute 31 Henry VIII. c. 10, which enacts, "That no person or persons, of what estate, degree, or condition soever he or they be of, (except only the King's children,) shall at any time hereafter attempt or presume to sit or have place at any side of the cloth of estate in the parliament chamber,

and the said Princess Anne respectively, to the Crown and Regal Government of the said kingdoms of England, France, Ireland, &c., shall be and remain and continue to the most excellent Princess Sophia, and the heirs of her body, being Protestants," &c.

Soon after Queen Anne's accession to the throne, she was pleased to order the Princess Sophia to be prayed for in the prayer for the Royal Family. And the more firmly to secure the succession in the Protestant line, the Queen did, in the parliaments held in the fourth and fifth years of her reign, give her royal assent to two further acts; viz. One for naturalizing the said Princess Sophia, and the issue of her body; and the other, An act for the greater security of her Majesty's person and government, and of the succession of the Crown of England in the Protestant line.

And, by the articles of the Union, the Protestant succession in the house of Hanover was made a fundamental part of our present constitution.

"To all the King's children belong the title of Royal Highness: all subjects are to be uncovered in their presence, to kneel when they are admitted to kiss their hands; and at table they are (out of the King's presence) served on the knee."-Chamberlayne's "Present State of Great Britain," 1723, p. 61.

neither of the one hand of the King's Highness nor of the other, whether the King's Majesty be there personally present or not;" and further, that certain great officers therein named shall have precedence above all Dukes, except only such as shall happen to be the King's son, brother, uncle, nephew, (which Sir Edward Coke explains to signify grandson or nepos,) or brother or sister's son. But, under the description of the King's children, his grandsons are held to be included, without having recourse to Sir Edward Coke's interpretation of nephew. And therefore, when George II. created his grandson Edward, the second son of Frederick Prince of Wales, deceased, Duke of York, and referred it to the House of Lords to settle his place and precedence, they certified that he ought to have place next to the Duke of Cumberland, the then King's youngest son, and that he might have a seat on the left hand of the cloth of estate. But when, on the accession of George III, those royal personages ceased to take place as the children, and ranked only as the brother and uncle of the King, they also left their seats on the side of the cloth of estate; so that when the Duke of Gloucester, his Majesty's second brother, took his seat in the House of Peers, he was placed on the upper end of the Earls' bench, (on which the Dukes usually sit,) next to his Royal Highness the Duke of York.

The coronets of all the sons, brothers, or uncles of the Sovereign, consist of a circle of gold bordered with ermine, heightened with four fleurs-de-lis and as many crosses-patée alternately, agreeably to the grant made by Charles II. in the thirteenth year of his reign.

The coronets of the Princesses of Great Britain consist of a circle of gold, bordered with erinine, and heightened with crossespatée, fleurs-de-lis, and strawberry-leaves alternately; whereas a Prince's coronet has only fleurs-de-lis and crosses.

The sons, brothers, and uncles of the Sovereign, are styled Princes of the Blood Royal; as the daughters, sisters, and aunts are Princesses of the Blood Royal.

Letters addressed to the Princes of the Blood Royal are superscribed,

"To His Royal Highness,"-commence with "SIR," and conclude,

"I remain,

With the greatest respect,

Sir,

Your Royal Highness' most dutiful

and most obedient humble servant."

A similar style is used in addressing letters to the Princesses of the Blood Royal, or the wives of the Princes.

The nephews, nieces, and cousins of the Sovereign, are merely Princes and Princesses of the Blood, and do not take the style of Royal.

A letter addressed to a Prince of the Blood should commence, "SIR;"-and concluding with,

In the year 1718, George I. was pleased to signify his pleasure to his Lord Chancellor, that he should require all the Judges of England to meet, and give him their opinions on the following question among others, namely, "Whether the care and appro

bation of his Majesty's grandchildren, when grown up, did belong of right to his Majesty, as King of this realm, or not?"

In the consideration of this question, Parker, then Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, afterwards Lord High Chancellor, delivered himself in these words:

*

"There is no law against any one for marrying without the father's consent; but the crime is, to marry any of the Royal Fa mily without the King's consent. The King's consent was always held necessary in case of marriage of any of the Royal Family, always used and never contested; were it otherwise, it would be setting up two independent powers, and is a trust too big for any subject."

Baron Fortescue Aland remarked, that "happy it was for this nation that the King, in the marriages of Mary,† Queen to William III, and of Queen Anne, had this prerogative; for, had the pretended paternal right prevailed, the English nation had been for ever undone, and our religion destroyed, and we had never seen the many and great blessings we enjoy, and are like to enjoy, by this family sitting on the throne of Great Britain."

Ten of the twelve Judges were of opinion, that the care and approbation of the marriage of his Majesty's grandchildren, when grown up, did belong of right to his Majesty as King of this realm.

The two dissenting Judges were of opinion, that the King had no exclusive right as to marriage, but only a concurrent right with

*The Act to prevent clandestine marriages did not pass until the following reign. It is the statute 26 Geo. II. c. 33.

+ Charles II, who had obliged his brother the Duke of York to allow the young Princesses, his daughters, to be brought up in the Protestant faith, performed perhaps the most popular measure of his reign when he concluded a marriage between the Lady Mary, the elder Princess, and heir apparent to the crown, and the Prince of Orange. "All parties," says Hume, "strove who should most applaud it." And even Arlington, who had been kept out of the secret, told the Prince, "That some things, good in themselves, were spoiled by the manner of doing them, as some things bad were mended by it; but he would confess that this was a thing so good in itself, that the manner of doing it could not spoil it."

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the Prince their father. However, they declared it to be a duty incumbent upon every member of the Royal Family to apply to the King, and to receive his royal approbation upon every occasion of this kind; for they found, that all negotiations of marriages in the Royal Family had been carried on by the intervention of the Crown; and that such marriages as had been contracted without the royal assent and approbation, had been held as a contempt of the regal authority.

The most frequent instances of the Crown's interposition go no farther than nephews and nieces, but examples are not wanting of its reaching to more distant collaterals. And the statute 6 Henry VI, which prohibits the marriage of a Queen-Dowager without the consent of the King, assigns this reason for it—" because the disparagement of the Queen shall give greater comfort and example to other ladies of estate, who are of the blood royal, more lightly to disparage themselves."

Therefore, by the statute 28 Henry VIII, c. 18, (repealed among other statutes of treasons by 1 Edward VI, c. 12,) it was made high treason for any man to contract marriage with the King's children or reputed children, his sisters or aunts, ex parte paternâ, or the children of his brethren or sisters; being exactly the same degrees to which precedence is allowed by the statute 31 Henry VIII, before mentioned.

* Blackstone's "Commentaries," Bk. 1. c. 4. who, in his note (besides the instances cited in Fortescue Aland's "Reports," &c. 1748, fol) refers to others; as for brothers and sisters, under Edward III, Henry V, Edward IV, Henry VIII, and Edward VI. For nephews and nieces under Henry III, Edward I. and III, Richard II. and III, and under Henry VII.

+ Blackstone, ibid., where he refers to instances of it reaching to greatnieces under Edward II; to first cousins under Edward III; to second and third cousins under Edward III, Richard II, Henry VI. and VII, and under Queen Elizabeth; to fourth cousins under Henry VII; and to the blood royal in general under Richard II.