Note (Back) — Chapter III

50. Regencies.—The age of majority of the sovereign is eighteen. The constitutions of most monarchical states contain more or less elaborate stipulations respecting the establishment of a regency in the event of the sovereign's minority or incapacitation. In Great Britain, on the contrary, the practice has been to make provision for each such contingency when it should arise. A regency can be created and a regent designated only by act of Parliament. Parliamentary enactments, however, become operative only upon receiving the assent of the crown, and it has sometimes happened that the sovereign for whom a regent was required to be appointed was incapable of performing any governmental act. In such a case, there has been resort usually to some legal fiction by which the appearance, at least, of regularity has been preserved. A regency act regularly defines the limits of the regent's powers and establishes specific safeguards in respect to the interests of both the sovereign and the nation.[64]