acquiesced in; then he admitted that no long admission of the right
could be pleaded without the fatal interruption of the bar. He entreated
their lordships to try the usage of the coronation of the queen-consort
by these three principles of investigating such rights founded upon
immemorial custom. Of the first, namely, uniform enjoyment, they had
abundant proof. As to the second, namely, the occurrence of interruption
in the exercise of the right, non-acquiescence in that interruption, a
successful and most complete resistance to the attempt to withhold the
exercise of the right, they had that, fully sustaining his proposition,
in the case of the wife of Prince Henry; where Henry thought proper in
his lifetime to crown his eldest son without also crowning that eldest
son's consort. He had therefore with him the uniform enjoyment of the
right her Majesty claimed; then the successful resistance of an attempt,
as in Henry's case, to delay the exercise of the right; and lastly, the
total absence of any adjudication or confiscation, or any thing like
either in any single instance against him. There was, in fact, no other
possible way of showing the existence of the right, but in the manner in
which he was assuming, proving, and, as he thought, establishing it. How
else, before the Court of Claims, were rights of service at the ceremony
of the coronation established? How else did the barons of the Cinque
Ports show their right to carry the canopy over the king, and to have a
part of that canopy for their service? Suppose any instance in which the
barons should, for want of specific proof, in the lapse of ages, fail to
show that they had exercised that privilege--would that countervail the
validity of their claim, founded on repeated usage? Certainly not. He
would venture to say that there were at least half a dozen instances in
which the barons could not show they had exercised their asserted right:
and would any of these instances, where that proof failed, shake the
firm hold of their long and undeniable usage? Upon a reference to the
services which were to be performed at the ceremony of the coronation,
it was clear, from the separate rights held upon the performance of
particular kinds of attendance upon the queen, that her part of the
ceremony was substantive, independent, and principal; that her right was
clearly within herself, and not dependent upon the mere will of the
King. So essential, indeed, was it that she should be crowned with all
the forms of pomp which belonged to such a solemnity, that the same
writs of summons were issued, and nearly the same demands of service
made upon officers of state as when the king himself was crowned. The
usage clearly governed the right, and more especially in this solemnity
of coronation, which was altogether the creature of precedent, and
existed only by its authority. The queen's coronation was in itself
manifestly a substantive, important, and independent ceremony,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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