t of
Parliament can bind the king from any prerogative which is
inseparable from his person, 'but that' (Mr. Hallam adds) 'was
before he had learned the bolder tone of his declining
years.'[10]

[10] Const. Hist. vol. iii. p. 84.

The order of Baronets was a new creation by James I., but his
decision of the controversy which arose touching a point of
precedency thereupon, shows the prevailing notions of the royal
prerogative.

'The King's most excellent Majesty, having taken into his royal
audience and censure a certain controversy, touching place and
precedence, between the younger sons of viscounts and barons, and
the baronets, being a degree by His Majesty recently created,
which controversy did arise out of some dark words contained in
the letters patent of the said baronets. His Majesty well
weighing that the letters patent of the Baronets have no special
clause or express words to give them the said precedence, and
being a witness unto himself, which is a testimony above all
exception, that his princely meaning was only to give and advance
the new dignity of His Majesty's creation, but never therewithal
tacitly and obscurely to injure a third party.'[11] ... And then
he goes on to give precedency to Knights of the Garter, Privy
Councillors, Judges, &c.; over the younger sons of Viscounts and
Barons, 'in all places, and upon all occasions, any constitution,
order, degree, office, service, place, employment, custom, use,
or other thing to the contrary notwithstanding.' From Henry VIII.
to James I. were the high and palmy days of prerogative, when the
authority of the Crown was something even more transcendental
than that of Parliament itself, and when it was no doubt held
that, while the Crown could dispense with the provisions of an
Act of Parliament, an Act of Parliament could never bind the
prerogative of the Crown; but when Lord Coke began to adopt his
'bolder tone' he laid down very different law, and he says
expressly, in speaking of the Act of Henry VIII., 'But Henry,
though standing as much upon his prerogative, as any of his
progenitors, finding how vexatious it was to himself, and
distasteful to his ancient nobility, to have new raised degrees,
raised to precedency of them, and finding that this kind of
controversy for precedency was of that nature, that it had many
partakers, spent long time, and hindered the arduous, urgent, and
weighty affairs of the Parliament, was content to bind and limit