Note (24) — Chapter III

This is by the Acts 7 and 8 Will. III. c. 15; 6 Anne, c. 7; and 39 Geo. III. c. 127. See Stephen’s Commentaries, ii. 380. Blackstone’s reasoning runs thus: “This dissolution formerly happened immediately upon the death of the reigning sovereign; for he being considered in law as the head of the parliament (caput principium, et finis), that failing, the whole body was held to be extinct. But the calling a new parliament immediately on the inauguration of the successor being found inconvenient, and dangers being apprehended from having no parliament in being, in case of a disputed succession, it was enacted,” etc. By the Reform Act of 1867 the whole tradition of the lawyers was swept away.