Page:Dod's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage etc. of Great Britain and Ireland.djvu/40

 16 PRECEDENCE precedence of him. The king or the queen reg- nant is always, and in all respects, superior to any subject, and his or her position exemplifies more clearly than that of any other person the real meaning of the term Precedence. Common obser- vation is sufficient to inform the reader, when considering the precedence of the sovereign, that on many occasions propincjuity to the place of greatest honour is regulated by a reversed scale to that of numerical precedence, and though apparently a contradiction in terms, it is true, that persons of greatest dignity do not strictly precede those of less consideration and importance. Thus in many state-processions it is well known that the position occupied by royalty is not by any means the first in numerical order ; bttt wherever the Sovereign is placed, from that point radiate the gradations of dignity and rank, and by pro- pinquity to that centre is regulated the whole complicated machinery of etiquette and pre- cedence. Therefore in any scale the Sovereign is not so much to be regarded as having a specific personal rank, but as constituting and estab- lishing by his own position the source from which all dignity shall spring. jIany officers of state on ceremonial occasions actually go before His Majesty, without thereby negativing the royal title to precedence, or acquiring for them- selves any increase of dignity or rank. Whatever position therefore the Sovereign occiTpies, that is ipso facto the first place with reference to all precedence, though it may be far from first in numerical point of view. 2. Peince of Wales. — The Prince of Wales has been at all times regarded as the first subject in the realm — the nearest to the throne — the most dignified of the peers of parliament, and, though not exercising any political power beyond his vote as a legislator, yet regarded by all men as the most eminent personage in the state next after the Sovereign ; the Prince of "Wales is the heir apparent ; the heir presumptive may be brother, uncle, nephew, niece, or even a more distant relative of the Sovereign ; but the prospect which^an heir presumptive may possess of e^'ent- ually succeeding to the throne gives him no place in the scale of precedency ; the rank he holds is merely derived from consanguinity. But the station of Prince of Wales is clearly and indisput- ably that of the first and highest of the Sovereign's subjects. 3. YoTJNGEB Sons of the Sovereign. — The second son of the reigning monarch takes rank next after the eldest, and all the younger sons take precedence amongst each other according to priority of birth. They usvially receive peerages as soon as they liecome of age ; and in the Hotise of Lords they would of coiu'se rank above all other peers, and take precedence amongst each other according to the dates of their respective patents ; for example, if the fifth son received his dukedom previous to the fourth, then the yoimger would in all proceedings of the Upper House take precedence of the elder : but this sort of anomaly is not likely to occtu- ; for the practice is, to grant the peerages in the order of primogeniture, so that the precedence of those princes in the Hotise of Lords should coincide with their stations in all other assemblies. [4. Eldest Son of the Heir Apparent. — The eldest son of the Prince of Wales takes pre- cedence of any other grandson of the Sovereign, and follows the youngest son of his grandparent the Sovereign, as was settled in the case of Edward Duke of York, second son of Frederick Prince of Wales, and grandson of George II.. in 1760, of the late Duke of Clarence in 1890, and of the Duke of York in 1892. 5. Grandsons or the Sovereign. — Estab- lished usage gives the grandsons of the Sovereign this position. The rule appears to be, that every one who could in any event succeed to the throne, takes precedence of those subjects who, during his lifetime, are incapable of such succession. 6. Brothers of the Sovereign. — In the royal family the first class are the sons of the monarch, the second his grandsons, etc. ; then follow his brothers, his nephews, his uncles, etc. Thus the next brother to the king might be at one time the first subject in the realm ; but if the king should marry and have seven sons, the brother then would take the eighth place : he might also live to follow fifteen or sixteen of his grand- nephews ; but one of these might succeed to the throne, marry, have sons, and so remove his grand- uncle still further from the highest point : it frecjuently happens, therefore, that as a royal duke grows older he sinks in the scale of pre- cedence.] 7. Uncles of the Sovereign. — A royal duke may be in one reign the son of the king ; in the next reign he may become brother to the Sove- reign ; in the next, imcle to the monarch ; and in the following reign, grand-uncle. In the first of these cases he belongs to the highest rank, in the next he falls into the second grade, and finally into the third. Every member of the royal family capable of succeeding to the throne retains an acknowledged superiority over other stibjects, but the rank that he holds amongst his own relatives is altered every time a new reign com- mences. 8. Nephews of the Sovereign. — These pro- ceed in the following order : — 1st, such of the monarch's nephews as are the sons of his next brother ; 2ndly, the sons of his second brother ; then those of his third brother, and so on according to the seniority of their respective fathers ; the sons of each father, of course, taking precedence amongst each other according to priority of birth. The sons of the eldest sister of the Sovereign follow those of his youngest brother, taking rank amongst each other according to the usual rule of priority of birth ; the sons of each sister enjoy- ing precedence according to the seniority of their respective mothers. 9. Archbishop of Canterbury. — After many contests between the Archbishops of Canterbury and of York, it was decided by King Edward III. in 1352 that the former should always enjoy precedence over the latter ; and this decision has ever since remained in force. Both were always entitled to go before dukes. 10. Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. — The act of Henry VIII respecting precedence, enacts that the Lord High Chancellor shall, if a baron or above that degree, take precedence next after the Archbishop of Canterbury. This officer is ex-officio President of the Court of Appeal of the High Court of Justice. The Lord Chancellor of Ireland is not always raised to the peerage, but in modern times that honour has been invariably conferred on the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain. No provision is made by Act of Parliament for the precedence in England of any of the great officers of .state either of Scotland or Ireland ; but at the coronation of William IV the Lord Chancellor of Ireland (Lord Plunket) walked immediately next to the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain. 11. Archbishop of York. — Until the 31st of Henry VIII this prelate ranked next to the Archbishop of Canterbury, but the act passed in that year regarding precedence placed the Lord Chancellor between the two archbishops. 12. The Premier. — By royal warrant dated Dec, 1905. 13. Archbishop of Armagh. — This prelate, under the fourth article of the Act of Union, took rank next to the Archbishop of York ; and upon the disestablishment of the Irish Church it wag enacted by the Irish Church Act that every Archbishop, etc., then living should, during his life, enjoy the same title and precedence. See Clerical Precedence, p. 23. 14. Archbishop of Dublin. — This prelate has