ity which at any time is legally left
in the hands of the crown."[68] The elements of it are to be
ascertained, not from statutes but from precedents, and the sources of
it, as enumerated by Anson, are (1) the residue of the executive power
which the king in the early stages of English history possessed in all
of the branches of government; (2) survivals of the power once
accruing to the king as the feudal chief of the country; and (3)
attributes with which the crown has been invested by legal theory, e.g.,
the attribute of perpetuity popularly expressed in the aphorism
"the king never dies," and that of perfection of judgment, similarly
expressed in the saying "the king can do no wrong."[69] The most
considerable element in the prerogative is that which Anson first
mentions, i.e., the power which the king has carried over, in the
teeth of the popularization of the governmental system, from days when
the royal authority was not hedged about as since the seventeenth
century it has been. It is further to be observed that no
inconsiderable portion of the royal powers as they exist to-day
represent original prerogative worked over and delimited by
parliamentary enactment, so that in many instances it becomes
difficult to determine whether a given power exists by virtue of a
statute, by which it is to be regarded as absolutely defined, or (p. 053)
by virtue of an anterior prerogative which may be capable of being
stretched or interpreted more or less arbitrarily. Nominally, the
sovereign still holds by divine right. At the head of every public
writ to-day stand the words "George V., by the Grace of God of Great
Britain and Ireland King." But no principle of the working
constitution is more clearly established than that in accordance with
which the prerogatives of the crown may be defined, restricted, or
extended by the supreme legislative power. Among prerogatives once
claimed and exercised, but long since rendered obsolete by prohibitive
legislation may be mentioned those of imposing taxes without
parliamentary consent, suspending or dispensing with laws, erecting
tribunals not proceeding according to the ordinary course of justice,
declaring forfeit the property of convicted traitors,[70] purveyance,
pre-emption, and the alienation of crown lands at pleasure.

[Footnote 68: Law of the Constitution (7th ed.),
420.]

[Footnote 69: Law and Custom of the Constitution