Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/212

196 avowedly lodged in the hands of the ubject only, to be exerted whenever prejudice, caprice, or dicontent hould happen to take the lead. Conequently it can no where be o properly lodged as in the two houes of parliament, by and with the conent of the reigning king; who, it is not to be uppoed, will agree to any thing improperly prejudicial to the rights of his own decendants. And therefore in the king, lords, and commons, in parliament aembled, our laws have exprely lodged it. 4.&ensp;, fourthly; however the crown may be limited or transferred, it till retains it’s decendible quality, and becomes hereditary in the wearer of it. And hence in our law the king is aid never to die, in his political capacity; though, in common with other men, he is ubject to mortality in his natural: becaue immediately upon the natural death of Henry, William, or Edward, the king urvives in his ucceor. For the right of the crown vets, , upon his heir; either the , if the coure of decent remains unimpeached, or the , if the inheritance be under any particular ettlement. So that there can be no interregnum; but, as ir Matthew Hale oberves, the right of overeignty is fully inveted in the ucceor by the very decent of the crown. And therefore, however acquired, it becomes in him abolutely hereditary, unles by the rules of the limitation it is otherwie ordered and determined. In the ame manner as landed etates, to continue our former compariion, are by the law hereditary, or decendible to the heirs of the owner; but till there exits a power, by which the property of thoe lands may be transferred to another peron. If this transfer be made imply and abolutely, the lands will be hereditary in the new owner, and decend to his heir at law: but if the transfer be clogged with any limitations, conditions, or entails, the lands mut decend in that chanel, o limited and precribed, and no other. thee four points conits, as I take it, the contitutional notion of hereditary right to the throne: which will be till far- ther