will be neceffary. money; Portugal coin being only current by private con[279 fent, fo that any one who pleafes may refufe to take it in There is at prefent no fuch legitimated payment. The king may alfo at any time decry, or cry down, any coin of the kingdom, and make it no longer current (22). V. THE king is, laftly, confidered by the laws of England as the head and supreme governor of the national church. To enter into the reafons upon which this prerogative is founded is matter rather of divinity than of law. I fhall therefore only obferve that by ftatute 26 Hen. VIII. c. 1. (recit ing that the king's majesty justly and rightfully is and ought to be the fupreme head of the church of England; and fo had been recognized by the clergy of this kingdom in their convocation) it is enacted, that the king fhall be reputed the only fupreme head in earth of the church of England, and fhall have annexed to the imperial crown of this realm, as well the title and ftile thereof, as all jurifdictions, authori ties, and commodities, to the faid dignity of fupreme head of the church appertaining. And another statute to the same purport was made, 1 Eliz. c. 1. (23). с 1 Hal. P. C. 197. (22) All officers of the revenue are required to cut every piece of gold coin tendered to them, if it is not of the current weight according to the king's proclamation 14 Geo. III. c. 70. And by 13 Geo. III. c. 71. any perfon may cut counterfeit gold money, or what has been unlawfully diminished. (23) As queen Mary by 1 & 2 Ph. & M. c. 8. had repealed all the ftatutes made in the time of her father derogatory to the fee of Rome, and had fully reinstated the pope in all his former power and jurisdiction in this country; queen Elizabeth, to fhew her attachment to the proteftant cause, by the first parliamentary act of her reign repealed this ftatute of queen Mary, and revived all the ftatutes relating to the church paffed in the time of Henry VIII. This proves how little at that time depended upon the authority of parliament, IN virtue of this authority the king convenes, prorogues, reftrains, regulates, and diffolves all ecclefiaftical fynods or convocations. This was an inherent prerogative of the crown, long before the time of Henry VIII., as appears by the ftatute 8 Hen. VI. c. 1. and the many authors, both lawyers and historians, vouched by fir Edward Coke 1. So that the ftatute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19. which restrains the convocation from making or putting in execution any canons repugnant to the king's prerogative, or the laws, cuftoms, and itatutes of the realm, was merely declaratory of the old common law that part of it only being new, which makes the king's royal affent actually neceflary to the validity of every canon. The convocation or ecclefiaftical synod, in England, differs confiderably in it's conftitution from the synods of other chriftian kingdoms: thofe confifting wholly of bishops; whereas with us the convocation is the miniature of a parliament, wherein the archbishop prefides with regal state; the upper house of bifhops reprefents the houfe of lords; and [280] the lower house, composed of representatives of the several diocefes at large, and of each particular chapter therein, refembles the house of commons with it's knights of the shire and burgeffes. This conftitution is faid to be owing to the policy of Edward I.: who thereby at one and the same time let in the inferior clergy to the privileges of forming ecclefiaftical canons, (which before they had not,) and also introduced a method of taxing ecclefiaftical benefices, by consent of convocation (24). d 4 Inft. 322, 323. 12 Rep. 72. f In the diet of Sweden, where the ecclefiaftics form one of the branches of the legislature, the chamber of the clergy refembles the convocation of England. It is composed of the bishops and super- Gilb. Hift. of Exch. c. 4. parliament, which could accede to fuch immense revolutions in the courfe of four or five years. (24) From the learned Commentator's text, the student would perhaps be apt to fuppofe that there is only one convocation at a FROM this prerogative alfo, of being the head of the church, arifes the king's right of nomination to vacant bifhopricks, and certain other ecclefiaftical preferments; which will more properly be confidered when we come to treat of the clergy. I fhall only here observe, that this is now done in confequence of the ftatute 25 Hen. VIII. C. 20. time. But the king, before the meeting of every new parliament, directs his writ to each archbishop, to fummon a convocation in his peculiar province. Godolphin fays, that the convocation of the province of York conftantly correfponds, debates, and concludes the fame matters with the provincial fynod of Canterbury, God. 99. But they are certainly diftinct and independent of each other; and when they ufed to tax the clergy, the different convocations fometimes granted different fubfidies. In the 22 Hen. VIII. the convocation of Canterbury had granted the king one hundred thousand pounds; in confideration of which an act of parliament was paffed, granting a free pardon to the clergy for all spiritual offences, but with a provifo that it fhould not extend to the province of York, unless it's convocation would grant a fubfidy in proportion, or unless it's clergy would bind themselves individually to contribute as bounti fully. This ftatute is recited at large in Gib. Cod. 77. All deans and archdeacons are members of the convocation of their province; each chapter fends one proctor or representative, and the parochial clergy in each diocefe in Canterbury two proctors; but, on account of the small number of diocefes in the province of York, each archdeaconry elects two proctors. In York the convocation confifts only of one houfe; but in Canterbury there are two houses, of which the twenty-two bishops form the upper houfe; and before the reformation, abbots, priors, and other mitred prelates, fat with the bishops. The lower houfe of convo, cation in the province of Canterbury confifts of twenty-two deans, fifty-three archdeacons, twenty-four proctors for the chapters, and forty-four proctors for the parochial clergy. By 8 Hen. VI. c. 1, the clergy in their attendance upon the convocation have the same privilege in freedom from arreft as the members of the house of commons in their attendance upon parliament. Burn. Con, 1 Bac. Alr. 610. As As head of the church, the king is likewife the dernier refort in all ecclefiaftical causes; an appeal lying ultimately to him in chancery from the fentence of every ecclesiastical judge which right was restored to the crown by statute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19. as will more fully be fhewn hereafter (25). (25) By that ftatute it is declared, that for the future no appeals from the ecclefiaftical courts of this realm fhould be made to the pope, but that an appeal from the archbishop's courts should lie to the king in chancery; upon which the king, as in appeals from the admiral's court, fhould by a commiffion appoint certain judges or delegates finally to determine fuch appeals. See 3d vol. p. 66. CHAPTER THE EIGHTH. HAV OF THE KING'S REVENUE. AVING, in the preceding chapter, confidered at large those branches of the king's prerogative, which contribute to his royal dignity, and conftitute the executive power of the government, we proceed now to examine the king's fifcal prerogatives, or fuch as regard his revenue; which the British conftitution hath vested in the royal perfon, in order to fupport his dignity and maintain his power; being a portion which each subject contributes of his property, in order to fecure the remainder. The THIS revenue is either ordinary, or extraordinary. king's ordinary revenue is such, as has either subsisted time out of mind in the crown; or else has been granted by par liament, by way of purchase or exchange for fuch of the king's inherent hereditary revenues, as were found inconvenient to the subject. WHEN I fay that it has fubfifted time out of mind in the crown, I do not mean that the king is at present in the actual poffeffion of the whole of this revenue. Much (nay, the greatest part) of it is at this day in the hands of subjects; to whom it has been granted out from time to time by the kings of England: which has rendered the crown in fome measure dependent on the people for it's ordinary fupport and subfiftence. So that I must be obliged to recount, as part of the royal revenue, what lords of manors and other subjects frequently look upon to be their own abfolute inherent rights; because they are and have been vested in them and their anceftors for ages, though in reality originally derived from the grants of our antient princes. |