paid by Parliament to the amount of between three and four millions. On the accession of William the Fourth several other important changes were made. The whole revenues of the Crown, without any reservation, but not including the revenues of the Royal Duchies, were surrendered to Parliament. The Civil List was still further relieved from charges, such as the salaries of the ministers and of the judges, which belonged rather to the administration of public affairs than to the dignity or the personal comfort of the Monarch. The Civil List was divided into five different classes, to each of which a special annual sum was appropriated. These principles have been adopted in the construction of Her Majesty's Civil List. Suitable provision is thus made for Her Majesty's Privy Purse, for the salaries of the members of Her Majesty's Household and retiring allowances to them, for the expenses of Her Majesty's Household and for her domestic servants, for the Royal bounty, alms, and special services, and for pensions. Thus all that relates to the splendour of the Crown, or the personal opulence of the Queen, forms a distinct item in the national expenditure. But all charges relating to the various departments of the Public Services receive a special consideration. They are no longer confused with the personal expenses incident to Royalty. For those services Parliament can now make, without any apprehension of interference with the Royal income, such provision as the circumstances of each case may from time to time require.

§ 2. One branch of the expenditure for which the Civil List now provides merits a separate notice. It was part of our ancient constitutional policy* to furnish a

* Burke's Works, iii. 385.

Regulation of the Royal bounty.

permanent reward to public service, and to make that reward the origin of families, the foundation of wealth as well as of honour. The Crown, which has in its hands the trust of the daily pay for national services, was held also to have in its hands the means for the repose of public labour and the fixed settlement of acknowledged merit. In accordance with these principles it was held that the King might alienate or charge not only the Royal domains, but also any part of the Royal revenue, from whatever source it might be derived. This power, although it did not receive a judicial confirmation until the celebrated Banker's case in 1691,* had previously been freely exercised. But within a few years afterwards the same Act which limited the alienation of the Crown Lands further provided that no portion of the hereditary revenue should be alienated for any term beyond the life of the reigning King. This Act did not affect the hereditary revenues of Scotland and of Ireland and some other sources of revenue. When the hereditary revenues were exchanged for a fixed Civil List, the extent of that fund was the only limit to the charges upon it. No other limit was assigned to the amount of pensions; and no principle in their distribution regulated the discretion of the King and his advisers.

This unrestricted power of granting pensions was thus a formidable weapon in the hands of the Crown. The amount of pensions charged on the Civil List on an average of seven years before Mr. Burke's great movement in 1780 for economic reform was considerably more† than £100,000 a year. The amount of similar charges on the Irish revenue amounted in 1793 to £124,000. In 1810 the pensions charged upon the revenues of Scotland

amounted to £39,000. Various limitations were placed by Parliament on each of these funds as available for the payment of pensions. At length, on the accession of William the Fourth, when the remaining portions of the casual revenues were surrendered, the Pension Lists of the three kingdoms were consolidated. The entire Civil Pension List for the whole United Kingdom* was reduced from upwards of £145,000 to £75,000; and the remainder of the pensions were charged on the Consolidated Fund. On the accession of Her Majesty a further change was made. The amount available for pensions was restricted to £1,200 in each year. It was also provided that these pensions should be confined to "such persons as have just claims on the Royal beneficence, or who, by their personal services to the Crown, by the performances of duties to the public, or by their useful discoveries in science and attainments in literature and the arts, have merited the gracious consideration of their Sovereign and the gratitude of their country."

Effect of

nature of

§ 3. The change which in the last two centuries has taken place in the financial position of the Crown has materially affected the nature and the extent of the change in Royal influence. When the Royal revenue was Crown of a proprietary character, the King, in addition revenues. to his political sources of influence, possessed those which naturally belong to every great landowner. The demesne lands of the Crown were even in the sixteenth century of great extent. They were scattered over almost every county in England. No attempt was made by the Crown to carry on the obviously unprofitable business of cultivating by its own servants these vast and

scattered estates. They were let out upon leases for terms of years, and in almost all cases at a low rent. Thus most of the great families of the nation were direct tenants of the Crown. They were subject, if they had given any cause of offence, to find at the expiration of their term that their rent was raised, or that an increased fine for renewal was demanded, or even that a renewal upon any terms could not be obtained. In many cases too these estates brought with them a predominant influence in boroughs which returned members to Parliament. Thus the gradual alienation of the Crown lands deprived the Crown of a double source of influence. It weakened the Royal authority among the constituencies, and it took away from the Crown the command of so many votes in Parliament.

Another great source of the Royal authority of the Crown was wardships. Although this incident of tenures was in its nature lucrative, its political uses seem not to have been overlooked. After the Reformation* wardships were regarded as an important means for securing by the proper education of the youthful heir the extension of Protestantism. But at all times this prerogative materially extended the influence of the Crown. Families were often placed at the mercy of the Court, and were treated according to their deserts. The youthful head of a loyal house would probably find that the Royal claims admitted of a moderate composition. When the family had given offence or been troublesome, the right of wardship afforded a good opportunity of indicating in a perfectly legal manner His Majesty's displeasure. So important was this prerogative in the time of the Tudors that Sir Thomas Smith+ compares an attempt to deprive the King of it with an attempt "to take the club out of Hercules' hand." The Stuarts, however,

*Burnet, Hist. of His Own Times, i. 27.

+ See Amos, Statutes of Henry VIII., 66.

seem to have used this like every other branch of their prerogative, as a mere means either of getting money or of gratifying their favourites. In their hands a great political engine became an instrument of extortion. So much was this the case that at the time of the abolition of the military tenures the political importance of the question seems to have been generally overlooked. "Pierpoint," says Bishop Burnet,* writing of the statesman by whose agency the Act for the abolition of these tenures had been carried, "valued himself to me upon this service he did his country at a time when things were so little considered on either hand that the Court did not seem to apprehend the value of what they parted with, nor the country of what they purchased."

The abolition of the military tenures produced another effect of the same kind, and probably as little foreseen. The prerogative was now no longer daily presented to men's minds as something distinct from and superior to the ordinary rules of law. When there had been any collision between the interest of the Crown and the interest of the subject, that of the latter invariably gave way. The King had certain privileges, both positive and negative, possessed certain rights, and was exempt from certain obligations, which advantages no subject could claim. It was merely in relation to his proprietary rights that these privileges existed or were at least of frequent occurrence. There was thus a reciprocal influence of the proprietary and the political powers of the Crown. The power of the great landowner was supported by the authority of the head of the state. The administration of the King derived half its strength from that irresistible power in matters of private right before which in

* History of His Own Times, i. 28.

+ 12 Car. 24.