Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/255

Ch. 7. enim aliud potet rex, nii id olum quod de jure potet. And here it may be ome atisaction to remark, how widely the civil law differs from our own, with regard to the authority of the laws over the prince, or (as a civilian would rather have expreed it) the authority of the prince over the laws. It is a maxim of the Englih law, as we have een from Bracton, that “:” the imperial law will tell us, that “ .” We hall not long heitate to which of them to give the preference, as mot conducive to thoe ends for which ocieties were framed, and are kept together; epecially as the Roman lawyers themelves eem to be enible of the unreaonablenes of their own contitution. “',” ays Paulus, “' .” This is at once laying down the principle of depotic power, and at the ame time acknowleging it's aburdity.

the word prerogative we uually undertand that pecial pre-eminence, which the king hath, over and above all other perons, and out of the ordinary coure of the common law, in right of his regal dignity. It ignifies, in it’s etymology, (from ' and ') omething that is required or demanded before, or in preference to, all others. And hence it follows, that it mut be in it’s nature ingular and eccentrical; that it can only be applied to thoe rights and capacities which the king enjoys alone, in contraditinction to others, and not to thoe which he enjoys in common with any of his ubjects: for if once any one prerogative of the crown could be held in common with the ubject, it would ceae to be prerogative any longer. And therefore Finch lays it down as a maxim, that the prerogative is that law in cae of the king, which is law in no cae of the ubject.

are either direct or incidental. The direct are uch poitive ubtantial parts of the royal character and au- thority,