until the expiration of six weeks after parliament shall have been so assembled. . . or if parliament shall not then be assembled, then until the expiration of six weeks after parliament shall have been assembled... the regent shall not have or exercise any power or authority to grant, in the name or on the behalf of his Majesty any rank, title or dignity of the peerage, by letters patent, writ of summons, or any other manner whatever, or to summon any person to the house of lords by any title to which such person shall be the heir apparent, or to determine the abeyance of any rank, title or dignity of peerage, which now is or hereafter shall be in abeyance, in favour of any of the coheirs thereof by writ of summons or otherwise.

IX. Provided also, . . . That the said regent shall not, until after the said first day of February one thousand eight hundred and twelve, or the expiration of such six weeks as aforesaid, have power or authority to grant, in the name or on the behalf of his Majesty, any office or employment whatever, in reversion, or to grant for any longer term than during his Majesty's pleasure, any office, employment, salary or pension whatever, except such offices and employments in possession for the term of the natural life, or during the good behaviour of the grantee or grantees thereof respectively, as by law must be so granted: provided always, that nothing herein contained shall in any manner affect or extend to prevent or restrain the granting of any pensions under the provisions of an act passed in the thirty-ninth year of the reign of the present Majesty.1

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(The remainder of the clause cites 48 Geo. III. c. 145; 40 Geo. III. (Ireland) c. 1.)

X. Provided also, . . . That nothing in this act contained, shall in any manner affect or extend to prevent or restrain the granting of any pensions under the provisions of an act passed in the forty-first year of the reign of his present Majesty (i.e. 41 Geo. III. c. 96; 43 Geo. III. c. 160; 45 Geo. III. c. 72).

XI. And be it enacted, That nothing in this act contained shall extend or be construed to extend to empower the said regent, in the name and on the behalf of his Majesty, to give the royal assent to any bill or bills in parliament, for repealing, changing, or in any respect varying the order and course of succession to the crown of this realm, as the same stands now established.

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(12 and 13 W. III. c. 2 (the Act of Settlement), 13 Cha. II. c. 4 (the Act of Uniformity), and 5 Anne, c. 7 (Scotland) (securing the Presbyterian Church in Scotland), are here cited.)

1 39 Geo. III. c. 110.

XII. Provided also, . . . That if his said Royal Highness, George Augustus Frederick Prince of Wales shall not continue to be resident in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, or shall at any time marry a papist, then and in either of such cases, all the powers and authorities vested in his said Royal Highness by this act, shall cease and determine.

XIII. . . . Be it therefore enacted, That the care of his Majesty's royal person, and the disposing, ordering and managing of all matters and things relating thereto, shall be, and the same are hereby vested in the Queen's most excellent Majesty, during the continuance of his Majesty's indisposition. . . .

(The remainder of the article provides in detail for the Household of George III.)

(XIV., XV. provide the Queen with a Council.)

XVI. And be it further enacted, That such and every member of her Majesty's council shall, within the space of five days after his appointment by virtue of this act, or by virtue of her Majesty's nomination and appointment in manner aforesaid, take an oath before the Lord High Chancellor or Keeper of the Great Seal, or Commissioners for keeping the Great Seal of Great Britain, or the Lord President of his Majesty's Privy Council, or the Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, . . . or either of them, who are hereby

empowered to administer the same, . . . and the person administering such oath, shall give to the member of her Majesty's Council taking the same, a certificate of the same having been so taken, signed with his hand; which certificate shall be forthwith transmitted to his Majesty's Privy Council, and entered in the books of the said Privy Council. (A form of oath is here prescribed.)

(XVII., XVIII., XIX. prescribe the duties of the Council as regard the King's health and his recovery.

XX. deals with the summoning of the Privy Council should the King recover.)

XXI. And . . . That if his Majesty, by the advice of six or more of such Privy Council so assembled, shall signify his royal pleasure to resume the personal exercise of his royal authority, and to issue a proclamation declaring the same, such proclamation shall be issued accordingly, countersigned by the said six or more of the said Privy Council, and all the powers and authorities given by this act shall from thenceforth cease and determine, and the personal

exercise of the royal authority by his Majesty shall be and be deemed to be resumed by his Majesty, and shall be exercised by his Majesty, to all intents and purposes, as if this act had never been made.

XXII. And . . . That if his Royal Highness George Augustus Frederick Prince of Wales shall depart this life during the continuance of the regency by this act established, or cease to be regent under any of the provisions thereof, the Lords of his Majesty's most honorable Privy Council shall forthwith cause a proclamation to be issued, in his Majesty's name, under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, declaring the same: And if her Majesty the Queen shall depart this life during the time that the care of his Majesty's royal person shall be committed to her Majesty the regent shall forthwith order and direct a proclamation, under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to be issued and published, declaring the same: And in case the parliament in being at the time of the issuing of any proclamation declaring the death of the regent or of her Majesty, or at the time of the issuing of any proclamation for the resumption of the personal exercise of the royal authority by his Majesty, shall then be separated, by any adjournment or prorogation, such parliament shall forthwith meet and sit.

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(Articles XXIII.-XXX. (the end) deal with the dissolution of Parliament; the death of the Queen; the issue of money from the Civil List to the Queen and Royal Family; the Keeper of the Queen's Privy Purse; the care of the King's estates; and with authorising the Regent to dispose of Droits of the Crown and Admiralty.)

(A similar Bill to the above Act was introduced in 1788 on the occasion of the first serious illness of George III., but it did not become law, as the King recovered before, "by a fiction grotesque and dangerous," the royal consent by Commission had been given. On the important constitutional issues involved in the whole Regency question see Lecky, H.E. v. 379-451; Parlt. Hist. xxvii.; Cobbett, P.D. xviii.; Anson, L. and C. ii. 72-84; Rogers, P.L. ii. 226–231, 433-443; May, C.H.E. i. 168–223.)

RESOLUTIONS OF PARLIAMENT

(On which the above Act was founded.)

Resolved, 1, That it is the opinion of this House, that his Majesty is prevented by his present Indisposition, from coming to his Parliament, and from attending to public business; and that the personal exercise of the royal authority is thereby suspended.

2, That it is the opinion of this House, that it is the right and the duty of the Lords spiritual and temporal, and Commons of Great Britain and Ireland, now assembled, and lawfully, fully, and freely, representing all the estates of the people of this realm, to provide the means of supplying the defect of the personal exercise of the royal authority arising from his Majesty's said Indisposition, in such manner as the exigency of the case may appear to them to require.

3, That it is the opinion of this House, That for this purpose, and for maintaining entire the constitutional authority of the King, it is necessary that the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, should determine on the means whereby the Royal Assent may be given in Parliament to such Bill as may be passed by the two Houses of Parliament, respecting the exercise of the powers and authorities of the Crown, in the name and on the behalf of the King, during the continuance of his Majesty's present Indisposition.

(These resolutions, similar to those moved in 1788, were passed in both Houses of Parliament. To Resolution 3 Lord Holland moved the following amendment, which was rejected by 100 to 74.)

That his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, being of mature age, be requested to take upon himself the exercise of the powers and authorities of the Crown, in the name and on the behalf of the King, during the continuance of his Majesty's present Indisposition, and no longer. That an Address, founded on the Resolution, be presented to his Royal Highness, requesting him to take upon himself the Government aforesaid, and that it be at the same time and in the same manner communicated to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, that it is further the opinion of this Committee, that it will be expedient to abstain from the exercise of all such powers as the immediate exigencies of the state shall not call into action, until Parliament shall have passed a Bill or Bills for the future care of his Majesty's Royal Person during his Majesty's present Indisposition, and the securing to his Majesty, whenever it shall please Divine Providence to restore his health, the Resumption of the Royal Authority.

THE DEBATE ON THE REGENCY IN 1788

Mr. Fox. What were they going to search for Not precedents upon their journals, not parliamentary precedents, but precedents in the history of England. He would be bold to say, nay they all

knew, that the doing so would prove a loss of time, for there existed no precedent whatever, that could bear upon the present case. The circumstance to be provided for did not depend upon their deliberations as a house of parliament; it rested elsewhere. There was then a person in the kingdom differing from any other person that any existing precedents could refer to an heir apparent of full age and capacity to exercise the royal power. It behoved them, therefore, to waste not a moment unnecessarily, but to proceed with all becoming diligence to restore the sovereign power and the exercise of the royal authority...

In his firm opinion, his royal highness the Prince of Wales had as clear, as express a right to assume the reins of government, and exercise the power of sovereignty, during the continuance of the illness and incapacity with which it had pleased God to afflict his Majesty, as in the case of his Majesty's having undergone a natural and perfect demise: and, as to this right, which he conceived the Prince of Wales had, he was not himself to judge when he was entitled to exercise it; but the two Houses of Parliament, as the organs of the nation, were alone qualified to pronounce when the Prince ought to take possession of, and exercise his right. He thought it candid, entertaining this opinion, to come forward fairly, and avow it at that instant; and therefore, under such an idea, he conceived that as short a time as possible ought to intervene between the Prince of Wales's assuming the sovereignty, and the present moment. He justified the Prince's not making this his indubitable claim himself, by imputing his desire of waving the open advancement of it, to his having been bred in those principles which had placed his illustrious House on the throne, and to his known reverence and regard for those principles as the true fundamentals of our glorious constitution, in the maintenance of which, his family had flourished with so much prosperity and happiness, as sovereigns of the British empire. Hence it was, that his Royal Highness chose rather to wait the decision of Parliament, with a patient and due deference to the constitution, than to urge a claim, that, he trusted, a majority of that House, and of the people at large, admitted; and which, he was persuaded, could not be reasonably disputed. But, ought he to wait unnecessarily Ought his Royal Highness to wait while precedents were searched for, when it was known that none, that bore upon the case which so nearly concerned him, existed. Take it for granted, the House agreed to the motion, and proceeded by their committee to search for precedents. What precedents did the wording of the motion point to? It spoke in general and in

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