Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/207

Ch. 3. ciences of private men, that this rule hould be clear and indiputable: and our contitution has not left us in the dark upon this material occaion. It will therefore be the endeavour of this chapter to trace out the contutional doctrine of the royal ucceion, with that freedom and regard to truth, yet mixed with that reverence and repect, which the principles of liberty and the dignity of the ubject require. grand fundamental maxim upon which the , or right of ucceion to the throne of thee kingdoms, depends, I take to be this: “that the crown is, by common law and contitutional cutom, hereditary; and this in a manner peculiar to itelf: but that the right of inheritance may from time to time be changed or limited by act of parliament; under which limitations the crown till continues hereditary.” And this propoition it will be the buines of this chapter to prove, in all it’s branches: firt, that the crown is hereditary; econdly, that it is hereditary in a manner peculiar to itelf; thirdly, that this inheritance is ubject to limitation by parliament; latly, that when it is o limited, it is hereditary in the new proprietor.

1.&ensp;, it is in general hereditary, or decendible to the next heir, on the death or demie of the lat proprietor. All regal governments mut be either hereditary or elective: and, as I believe there is no intance wherein the crown of England has ever been aerted to be elective, except by the regicides at the infamous and unparalleled trial of king Charles I, it mut of conequence be hereditary. Yet while I aert an hereditary, I by no means intend a , title to the throne. Such a title may be allowed to have ubited under the theocratic etablihments of the children of Irael in Paletine: but it never yet ubited in any other country; ave only o far as kingdoms, like other human fabrics, are ubject to the general and ordinary dipenations of providence. Nor indeed have a  and an hereditary right any neceary connexion with each other; as ome have very weakly imagined. The titles of David and Jehu were equally jure