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of the instrument was also in that nobleman's hand-writing. The party herself had also made an affidavit, stating the manner in which that instrument came into her possession; that on an evening in the month of May, 1815, the duke of Kent being at the deponent's house, No. 74, Seymour-place, the said earl of Warwick came there, and in presence of the duke of Kent, after requiring and receiving a most solemn pledge, both on the part of his royal highness and the deponent, not to divulge the purport of the communication he was about to make, until after the death of his majesty, king Geo. III., did inform the deponent of her illustrious birth to wit, that she was the natural and lawful daughter of his royal highness the late duke of Cumberland deceased; that the proofs thereof had been deposited with him (lord Warwick) for her benefit, in case she should survive his late majesty, by the late earl of Chatham, and the rev. Dr. Wilmot (both since dead), to preserve safely and to keep secret until the demise of his said majesty; that lord Warwick afterwards informed the deponent that these several papers and documents were then at Warwick-castle; that shortly afterwards the said lord Warwick, on his return from Warwick-castle, delivered a part of these papers into the deponent's hands, the duke of Kent being present; and among others, the paper writing annexed, under the royal sign manual: and then the party recited the paper. The question, therefore, now was, whether this court was required by law to issue its process as prayed.

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jesty did not appoint any executor, or dispose of the residue of his personal property; but that his present majesty had become entitled, in right of his crown, to all the personal estate and personalty of his said late majesty remaining undisposed of. Now the paper itself directed the sum named to be paid by the royal testator's heir and successor. This, therefore, was not a question be tween the asserted legatee and any subject, either in the charac ter of executor, or of residuary legatee, or of next of kin. No subject was interested in opposing the present paper, but the claim was directly on the reigning sove reign. Consequently, the process prayed, was, in substance, a process against the sovereign; though in form it was described to be “a business of citing the king's proc tor." But it was added, behalf of our sovereign lord, the king, as the heir and successor of his late majesty." When this ap plication was first mentioned, the court asked the counsel, whether they had any precedent to adduce. The object of the court in this inquiry, was, at the earliest stage of the proceeding, to set all possible research in motion; not, however requiring a precedent in all its cir cumstances precisely similar to the present case; but in order to as certain (if such could be found either in the records of this court, or elsewhere), whether any prin ciple or analogy could be extracted, that should furnish the court with a legal authority to govern the present case. The history of the wills of our sovereigns, from the Saxon times-from the reign of Alfred the Great, for instance The party making this applica- down to the present day, had ac tion had alleged, that his late ma- cordingly been diligently searched

and examined; but no instance had been produced of probate being taken in the ecclesiastical courts of the will of any of these sovereigns, much less of such wills having been contested there against a reigning sovereign. In the rolls of parliament a single instance occurred, having something of a reference to such a jurisdiction; and this was the instance mentioned by lord Coke (in the 4th inst.), and by other text writers before him. But what did this amount to? In the rolls of parliament (1st Henry V.) it was set forth, that Henry IV. made a will, and thereof appointed executors; that such executors, fearing the insufficiency of the assets, declined to act; that under these circumstances the deceased king's effects would be to be disposed of by the archbishop of Canterbury, as ordinary, who should direct them to be sold; but that Henry V, instead of allowing such effects to be sold, took to them, and agreed to pay the appraised value of them. This was all, which he (sir John Nicholl) had been able to collect from the rolls of parliament, as to the case referred to. There, however, subjects were executors; subjects alone were interested in the effects so bequeathed; and the sovereign agreed to take the whole of them, paying the value. Except this case, mentioned in the rolls of parliament, and occurring nearly 400 years ago, when the matter could neither have been very much discussed, nor very well considered, the court did not find the slightest trace, or allusion to, and still less exercise of, jurisdiction over the wills of sovereigns. The only royal will deposited in the registry of that court, was the will of Henry VIII, and that was

not an original, but a copy; but it bore on the face of it no trace of having had probate of it granted to it under this jurisdiction. Since the date of that will, during a period of 300 years, no instance had occurred of the will of any English sovereign having been brought into that court. The statute of the 24th Henry VIII., cap. 12, was evidently passed, only with the view of checking the then frequent appeals to Rome, which appeals it for the future entirely cut off. But its object was certainly in no degree to subject the sovereign to the ordinary jurisdiction of the spiritual courts. During 300 years, then, there was no instance of the will of a sovereign taking probate, or of probate being claimed of such a will, in the archbishop's court. If it was true-as, indeed, it was enacted in the 16th Richard II., by the bishops, lords, and commons in parliament assembled-that by the constitutions of this country the kings had at all times a right to make their wills, it was to be presumed that they had, in many instances, exercised their right of testacy; and one case had occurred so late as the time of George I., who executed such a testament. But if no instance was to be found of a probate having ever issued from that court, or of any sovereign's will, since the copy of the will of Henry VIII. having been deposited in the registry of this jurisdiction, pretty decisive proof was furnished, that this court had really no jurisdiction whatever in these subjects. The learned judge proceeded to say, that supposing even that from the reign of Henry VIII to the reign of George IV, all intermediate sovereigns, excepting only George I, had died

intestate, still the inference appeared to be the same with regard to the jurisdiction of this court; that of the effects of all other persons dying intestate, the ordinary granted administration, and anciently he might do so to whom he would, but under the 1st Henry VIII, administration was directed to be granted to the widows and next of kin of intestates; that by 22nd and 23rd Henry VIII, cap. 2, called the Statute of Distributions, the administrator became a trustee for the purpose of administering the property, and distributing it, as therein required; but that of a departed sovereign, dying intestate, the successor was exclusively entitled to the personal property. But in order to have legal authority to collect and recover the property, there was no instance of succeeding sovereigns-like ordinary persons coming to this court for letters of administration. It would indeed be contrary to all principles of law, that the authority of the ordinary should be necessary to give his majesty legal powers to act. All this appeared to furnish abundant evidence, that such a jurisdiction, as that which had been attributed to the court, did not, in truth, exist. The testamentary courts of the archbishops of England, in their respective provinces, were described as prerogative courts;" each archbishop having the prerogative of granting probate and administrations, in the case of persons dying seized of bona notabilia within his province. Still these were only inferior and subordinate jurisdictions. The style of these courts had no connexion whatever with the royal prerogatives of the crown; for though, derivatively, they were the king's ecclesiastical

courts, the sovereign being the fountain of all justice, ecclesiastical and civil, and the king being the supreme head of the church, yet immediately they were only the courts of the ecclesiastical ordinary. The ordinary, and not the crown, appointed their judges: they were subject to the control of the king's courts of chancery and common law, in case they exceeded their jurisdiction. That this court, therefore, should now, for the first time, presume to entertain a suit for so delicate an office as that of deciding on the will of his late majesty, would, under any circumstances, and in any form, require much caution and consideration, before it could be resolved upon. But it was a suit not merely to try the validity of the will of his late majesty, but to grant also the process of this court against the reigning sovereign. It was a demand upon his present majesty, which was to be enforced adversely. That such a process could not issue directly against his majesty, seemed to be admitted by the party; who prayed it, not as against the sovereign himself, but as against the king's proctor. It would of course be quite a novelty in constitutional law to attempt to implead the sovereign personally. No principle of that law seemed to be more directly laid down than this-that no one could proceed directly as against the king. The common law methods of obtaining possession or restitution from the crown of either real or personal property, are-1, by petition of right; 2nd, by monstrans de droit, manifestation of plea or right, both of which may be preferred or prosecuted either in the chancery or exchequer. It was not necessary in the present case, for the court

to say, whether a remedy could be obtained elsewhere. The learned judge, after showing that the same difficulty which he had pointed out as attaching to a process that went to impeach the king in his own courts, would attach to it if granted against the king's proctor; that he knew of no precedent in which any such process had been ever served personally on the king's proctor; and that he did not think the king's proctor, either by his warrant, or virtute officii, empowered to represent the person of the king, concluded his sentence by pronouncing that the. court had no jurisdiction. If this application were properly made, under the forms prescribed by the law and constitutions of the country, before other tribunals (and this court was not bound to suggest either the mode or the court in which such a proceeding should be instituted), no doubt ought to be entertained, that real justice would be done.

METROPOLITAN COURT OF AR

MAGH, OCT. 21, 1822.

The Office of his Grace, the Lord Archbishop of Armagh, Primate and Metropolitan of all Ireland, at the promotion of Thomas Tilly, the Proctor of said Office, against the Honourable and Right Reverend Percy Jocelyn, Lord Bishop of Clogher, and one of the Suffragan Bishops of the Metropolitan Church of Armagh. This cause of office was this day called on for hearing in the presence of his grace, the lord primate, and of four of his suffragan bishops, viz: the lords bishops of Kilmore, Derry, Dromore, and Raphoe, and of the right hon. Dr. Radcliff, his grace's vicar-general, and of

other distinguished and respectable personages. The bishop of Clogher having been thrice called in open court, did not appear; and in pain of his contumacy and contempt, the cause was proceeded in to a hearing and to its final determination.

Sir Henry Meredyth, the leading advocate for the office, stated the case. The bishop of Clogher, said he, is an ecclesiastic, and as such subject to the laws of the church. He has been for many years a priest in holy orders. In the year 1809 he was promoted to the united bishoprics of Leighlin and Ferns: on that occasion he was duly consecrated and enthroned, and he then swore canonical obedience to the then archbishop of Dublin, as his metropolitan, and subscribed to the canons of the church. For 11 years he acted as the bishop or pastor of that diocese, and with a character and conduct, which did honour to himself and his high office; insomuch, that in the year 1820, a little more than two months after the accession of his present majesty to the throne, he was deemed worthy of advancement, and he was accordingly translated to the see of Clogher, and to its high honour and advantages. On that occasion he took the oath of canonical obedience to the then lord primate of Ireland, his grace's predecessor. And, in the month of August, in the same year, he attended the triennial visitation of, and was visited by, his grace late lord primate, as one of his suffragan bishops. These facts are sustained by legal and appropriate evidence. The canons of the church are referred to in the pleading, and particularly the 42nd of those canons, by which he was and

the

is bound as the law of his conduct and adoption. That canon particularly prohibits the commission of those offences, of which he stands charged, under the heaviest penalties of the law; and it is for the violation of that canon, and under its authority, that the cause of deprivation is now proceeded in against him. The particular facts, which constitute that offence, are fully detailed in the pleading and the written evidence. That evidence is now permanent and recorded; and it fully evinced the existence of those evil habits and propensities in that unhappy man, with which he then stood charged, and which formed the foundation of that sentence which was to be pronounced against him. It also proved the fatal and depraved purposes for which he associated himself with a private soldier, wholly beneath him in rank and station, as the unworthy and vicious partner of his depravity and guilt. The place chosen by him for that base purpose was also unfitted to him as a prelate of the church, and a man of high rank and station; it was a common alehouse, situate in St. Alban's-place, in the city of Westminster. In his career of vice he was fortunately, nay, providentially stopped, before he had perpetrated the last foul act, or crime, which he himself designed; and by which, if committed, his life would have been forfeited to the offended laws of the country. Being found by the watchmen and others, in a situation disgraceful and degrading to him, he was made a prisoner, in order to be removed to the watch house of the district. He endeavoured, but in vain, to dissuade them from their purpose. On his removal, and close to that public

house in which he had been de tected and arrested, he was seen and recognized by a respectable gentleman of Ireland, who, from his previous knowledge of his dress, person, and appearance, proved his identity. He had upon him at the time his usual and proper dress, as a bishop or dignitary of the church. There was no disguise or concealment upon his person or appearance. That circumstance had created an early suspicion and observance of him and his actions on that night, and contributed, with many other circumstances proved in this cause, to the establishment of his identity, which, under other circumstances, might have been diffi cult of attainment and of proof. In his way to the watch-house, he was surrounded and insulted by many persons, who pressed upon him, and, in a situation degrading to himself and his high office, he approached to and passed the gates of Carlton Palace. What his

sensation and sentiments were, or must have been on that occasion, may be conceived; he must have then felt that he was "fallen." That feeling he himself displayed in a strong convulsive, but ineffec tual struggle for his release and enlargement-a circumstance, too, which is of value in the ascertainment of his guilt and identity. Upon his arrival at the watchhouse, the bishop and his associate were brought together into the presence of the constable of the watch-a Mr. John Latchford. The bishop had then to meet and see those persons, who, he knew, could and did depose against him; in his presence and hearing, and in that of his associate, the full par ticulars of their crime were disclosed and detailed; he did not

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