Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/286

 270 miniters, depotic power is in it's meridian, and wears a more dreadful apect.

of this prerogative is the legal ubiquity of the king. His majety, in the eye of the law, is always preent in all his courts, though he cannot peronally ditribute jutice. His judges are the mirror by which the king's image is reflected. It is the regal office, and not the royal peron, that is always preent in court, always ready to undertake proecutions, or pronounce judgment, for the benefit and protection of the ubject. And from this ubiquity it follows, that the king can never be nonuit ; for a nonuit is the deertion of the uit or action by the non-appearance of the plaintiff in court. For the ame reaon alo, in the forms of legal proceedings, the king is not aid to appear by his attorney, as other men do; for he always appears in contemplation of law in his own proper peron.

the ame original, of the king's being the fountain of jutice, we may alo deduce the prerogative of iuing proclamations, which is veted in the king alone. Thee proclamations have then a binding force, when (as ir Edward Coke oberves ) they are grounded upon and enforce the laws of the realm. For, though the making of laws is intirely the work of a ditinct part, the legilative branch, of the overeign power, yet the manner, time, and circumtances of putting thoe laws in execution mut frequently be left to the dicretion of the executive magitrate. And therefore his contitutions or edicts, concerning thee points, which we call proclamations, are binding upon the ubject, where they do not either contradict the old laws, or tend to etablih new ones; but only enforce the execution of uch laws as are already in being, in uch manner as the king hall judge neceary. Thus the etablihed law is, that the king may prohibit any of his ubjects from leaving the realm: a proclamation therefore forbidding this in general for three weeks, by laying an embargo Rh