Note (48) — Chapter II

The great statute of treason of 25 Edward the Third (see the Revised Edition of the Statutes, i. 185) secures the life of the King, his wife, and his eldest son, and the chastity of his wife, his eldest daughter, and his eldest son’s wife. But the personal privilege goes no further. As the Law of England knows no classes of men except peers and commoners, it follows that the younger children of the King—the eldest is born Duke of Cornwall—are, in strictness of speech, commoners, unless they are personally raised to the peerage. I am not aware that either case has ever arisen, but I conceive that there is nothing to hinder a King’s son, not being a peer, from voting at an election, or from being chosen to the House of Commons, and I conceive that, if he committed a crime, he would be tried by a jury. Mere precedence and titles have nothing to do with the matter, though probably a good deal of confusion arises from the very modern fashion—one might almost say the modern vulgarism—of calling all the children of the King or Queen “Princes” and “Princesses.” As late as the time of George the Second uncourtly Englishmen were still found who eschewed the foreign innovation, and who spoke of the Lady Caroline and the Lady Emily, as their fathers had done before them.

Another modern vulgarism is that of using the word “royal”—“royal visit,” “royal marriage,” and so forth—when there is no royalty in the case, the person spoken of being a subject, perhaps a commoner.