[Footnote d: 8 Rep. 1. Seld. titl. of hon. 2. 5.] THE younger sons and daughters of the king, who are not in the immediate line of succession, are little farther regarded by the laws, than to give them precedence before all peers and public officers as well ecclesiastical as temporal. This is done by the statute 31 Hen. VIII. c. 10. which enacts that no person, except the king's children, shall presume to sit or have place at the side of the cloth of estate in the parliament chamber; and that certain great officers therein named shall have precedence above all dukes, except only such as shall happen to be the king's son, brother, uncle, nephew (which sir Edward Coke[e] explains to signify grandson or _nepos_) or brother's or sister's son. And in 1718, upon a question referred to all the judges by king George I, it was resolved by the opinion of ten against the other two, that the education and care of all the king's grandchildren while minors, and the care and approbation of their marriages, when grown up, did belong of right to his majesty as king of this realm, during their father's life[f]. And this may suffice for the notice, taken by law, of his majesty's royal family. [Footnote e: 4 Inst. 362.] [Footnote f: Fortesc. Al. 401-440.] CHAPTER THE FIFTH. OF THE COUNCILS BELONGING TO THE KING. THE third point of view, in which we are to consider the king, is with regard to his councils. For, in order to assist him in the discharge of his duties, the maintenance of his dignity, and the exertion of his prerogative, the law hath assigned him a diversity of councils to advise with. 1. THE first of these is the high court of parliament, whereof we have already treated at large. 2. SECONDLY, the peers of the realm are by their birth hereditary counsellors of the crown, and may be called together by the king to impart their advice in all matters of importance to the realm, either in time of parliament, or, which hath been their principal use, when there is no parliament in being[a]. Accordingly Bracton[b], speaking of the nobility of his time, says they might properly be called "_consules, a consulendo; reges enim tales sibi associant ad consulendum_." And in our law books[c] it is laid down, that peers are created for two reasons; 1. _Ad consulendum_, 2. _Ad defendendum regem_: for which reasons the law gives them certain great and high privileges; such as freedom from arrests, &c, even when no parliament is sitting: because the law intends, that they are always assisting the king with their counsel for the commonwealth; or keeping the realm in safety by their prowess and valour. [Footnote a: Co. Litt. 110.] [Footnote b: _l._ 1. _c._ 8.] [Footnote c: 7 Rep. 34. 9 Rep. 49. 12 Rep. 96.]