Mr. DENMAN followed on the same side, and after a long speech, called on
their lordships, as a court sitting for legal inquiry, to say whether
there ever was a case presented to an inquest, which depended on custom
and usage, where a more complete and perfect body of custom and usage
had been adduced, than was brought forward on the present occasion? If
her Majesty's claim were refused, no dignity was safe, no property was
secure, not a single institution could be said to rest on a firm
foundation. If the coronation of the Queen could not be supported by
custom, the rest of that ceremonial could not be supported. Why was this
country governed by a king? Why did we submit to a kingly government?
Because the earliest ages, because all times, had recognised that form
of government, and because we could trace that custom beyond all time of
memory. Nothing could be more dangerous than to separate royalty from
the circumstances which belonged to it and added to its dignity. The
lives and properties of men depended for their security upon the same
principle. Why was there a house of peers, in which noble lords formed a
part of the legislature? Why were there commoners, who sat as
representatives of the people? Precisely because custom had ordered it
so. Custom was the author of the law and the law-makers. Custom
authorized the king, lords, and commons, to enact laws for the
government of this realm. All property, all dignity, all offices
existed, because they were sanctioned by prescriptive custom, or because
custom gave a prescriptive right to create them.
Saturday.--The Privy Council resumed this morning, soon after ten
o'clock. Below the bar was again crowded to excess.
Counsel were then called in.
MR. BROUGHAM said, he now held in his hand, and was prepared to lay
before the council, the documentary evidence to which he and his learned
friend had adverted in the course of their addresses in support of her
Majesty's memorial.
LORD HARROWBY.--Mr. Attorney-General, have you any observations to offer
on what counsel have stated to their lordships?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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