f England, above all others, he may claim it upon
every moral ground over his own children, nor is there any civil
or political consideration in reference to the heir apparent,
requiring that an exception should be made in his behalf. There
seem to exist confused notions of something very extraordinary
and transcendant in the status of a Prince of Wales, but the
difference between him and his younger brother is not very great;
and the only positive privilege with which the law certainly and
exclusively invests the heir apparent, is that of making it high
treason to attempt his life.[16]

[16] It is also treason to kill certain judicial officers
when in actual execution of their offices.--Hale, P. C.
13.

The heir apparent is Prince of Wales, and Duke of Cornwall, but
he is not necessarily either the one or the other, and except on
a certain condition he cannot be the latter.[17] For as the king
_creates_ his elder son, or heir apparent, Prince of Wales, he
has the power of withholding such creation, and though the eldest
son of the king is Duke of Cornwall by inheritance, the dukedom
is limited to the first begotten son of the king.[18]

[17] Two months elapsed between the death of Frederick
Prince of Wales, and the creation of his son, George
III., Prince of Wales.

[18] If, for example, George IV. had died in his youth, his
next brother might have been heir apparent, with no
other title than that of Bishop of Osnaburgh. Henry
VIII. after the death of Prince Arthur, and Charles I.
after that of Prince Henry, were Dukes of Cornwall, but
by special new creation.--H., P.C. 13.

The Prince of Wales has no right or privilege beyond those of any
other subject; he owes the same faith and allegiance to the
sovereign; and since 1789 none have ever ventured to assert that
he could claim the regency rather than any other subject. His
political condition, therefore, is little if at all different
from that of the rest of the Royal Family. His personal
propinquity to the sovereign must be less than that of his
father, and the question is, whether there is anything so
peculiar in his status as to supersede those natural relations of
father and son, which, according to all human custom, as well as
divine injunction, involve the duty of honour from the latter to
the former.

The son's enfranchisement from parental rule whe