rney and Solicitor General, not concealing his own
impression that it could not be consistent with his constitutional
position and prerogative for the King to appear as a witness to be
subjected to examination and cross-examination.[177] They, in their
statement of opinion, assumed it to be an undeniable principle of the
constitution that the sovereign, "by reason of his royal character,
could not give testimony." And therefore they had no doubt that the
Regent, exercising his authority, was equally prevented from so doing.
Colonel Berkeley's counsel had urged that, even if he could not appear
in open court and be sworn, he had the privilege of communicating his
evidence in a peculiar mode, by certificate under the Sign Manual or
Great Seal. But the Attorney and Solicitor General professed that they
could not discover whence this last privilege was derived; they urged,
as an insurmountable objection to such a contrivance, that "all
instruments under the Sign Manual or Great Seal must, in point of form,
be in the name of and on behalf of the King, which would manifestly be
incongruous when the evidence certified was not that of the King, but of
the Regent himself." And they quoted a case in which Lord Chief-justice
Willes had said "that the certificate of the King, under his Sign
Manual, of a fact (except in an old case in Chancery) had always been
refused." As it had been urged also, on Colonel Berkeley's behalf, that
the Prince had formerly "joined in proving the will of the Duke of
Brunswick," his brother-in-law, they farther expressed an opinion that
"he ought not to have done so, but should have left it to the other
executors."

On the point whether "the King himself could give evidence orally or in
any other manner," their opinion expressed very plainly the principle on
which they maintained that he could not. "That he was not compellable to
do so; that he could not be sworn (there being no power capable of
administering an oath to him in a court of justice). That, whether his
testimony be given _viva voce_ or otherwise, no question in chief or on
cross-examination could be proposed to him, was admitted by Colonel
Berkeley's counsel. And that his testimony must be conclusive as to the
facts stated by him, appeared necessarily to follow from the perfection
ascribed by law to his royal character. For such remarkable exceptions,
therefore, to the case of all other witnesses they could not but think
that strong and dec