The claim and exercise of the dispensing power is allowed to be very ancient in England; and though it seems at first to have been copied from Papal usurpations, it may plainly be traced up as high as the reign of Henry III. In the feudal governments, men were more anxious to secure their private property than to share in the public administration; and provided no innovations were attempted on their rights and possessions, the care of executing the laws, and insuring general safety, was, without jealousy, intrusted to the sovereign. Penal statutes were commonly intended to arm the prince with more authority for that purpose: and being in the main calculated for promoting his influence as first magistrate, there seemed no danger in allowing him to dispense with their execution, in such particular cases as might require an exception or indulgence. That practice had so much prevailed, that the parliament itself had more than once acknowledged this prerogative of the crown; particularly during the reign of Henry V., when they enacted the law against aliens,[*] and also when they passed the statute of provisors.[**] * Rot. Parl. I Hen. V. n. xv. ** Ibid. I Hen. V. n. xxii. It is remarkable, however, that in the reign of Richard II. the parliament granted the king only a temporary power of dispensing with the statute of provisors. Rot. Parl. 15 Rich.[** 15 is a best guess] II. n. i.: a plain implication that he had not, of himself, such prerogative. So uncertain were many of these points at that time.