Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/126

110 period to flourih all at once; and became much more coniderable in Europe, than when her princes were poeed of a larger territory, and her counels ditracted by foreign interets. This experience and thee coniderations gave birth to a conditional claue in the act of ettlement, which veted the crown in his preent majety’s illutrious houe, “that in cae the crown and imperial dignity of this realm hall hereafter come to any peron not being a native of this kingdom of England, this nation hall not be obliged to engage in any war for the defence of any dominions or territories which do not belong to the crown of England, without conent of parliament.”

come now to conider the kingdom of England in particular, the direct and immediate ubject of thoe laws, concerning which we are to treat in the enuing commentaries. And this comprehends not only Wales and Berwick, of which enough has been already aid, but alo part of the ea. The main or high eas are part of the realm of England, for thereon our courts of admiralty have juridiction, as will be hewn hereafter; but they are not ubject to the common law. This main ea begins at the low-water-mark. But between the high-water-mark, and the low-water-mark, where the ea ebbs and flows, the common law and the admiralty have , an alternate juridiction; one upon the water, when it is full ea; the other upon the land, when it is an ebb. territory of England is liable to two diviions; the one eccleiatical, the other civil.

1.&ensp; eccleiatical diviion is, primarily, into two provinces, thoe of Canterbury and York. A province is the circuit of an arch-bihop’s juridiction. Each province contains divers diocees, or ees of uffragan bihops; whereof Canterbury includes twenty one, and York three: beides the bihoprick of the ile of