4. BUT, fourthly; however the crown maybe limited or transferred, it still retains it's descendible quality, and becomes hereditary in the wearer of it: and hence in our law the king is said never to die, in his political capacity; though, in common with other men, he is subject to mortality in his natural: because immediately upon the natural death of Henry, William, or Edward, the king survives in his successor; and the right of the crown vests, _eo instanti_, upon his heir; either the _haeres natus_, if the course of descent remains unimpeached, or the _haeres factus_, if the inheritance be under any particular settlement. So that there can be no _interregnum_; but as sir Matthew Hale[b] observes, the right of sovereignty is fully invested in the successor by the very descent of the crown. And therefore, however acquired, it becomes in him absolutely hereditary, unless by the rules of the limitation it is otherwise ordered and determined. In the same manner as landed estates, to continue our former comparison, are by the law hereditary, or descendible to the heirs of the owner; but still there exists a power, by which the property of those lands may be transferred to another person. If this transfer be made simply and absolutely, the lands will be hereditary in the new owner, and descend to his heirs at law: but if the transfer be clogged with any limitations, conditions, or entails, the lands must descend in that chanel, so limited and prescribed, and no other. [Footnote b: 1 Hist. P.C. 61.]