ance;]

While the kings of England retained their continental dominions, and
were engaged in the wars to which those gave birth, they were of course
frequently absent from this country. Upon such occasions the
administration seems at first to have devolved officially on the
justiciary, as chief servant of the crown. But Henry III. began the
practice of appointing lieutenants, or guardians of the realm (custodes
regni), as they were more usually termed, by way of temporary
substitutes. They were usually nominated by the king without consent of
parliament; and their office carried with it the right of exercising all
the prerogatives of the crown. It was of course determined by the king's
return; and a distinct statute was necessary in the reign of Henry V. to
provide that a parliament called by the guardian of the realm during the
king's absence should not be dissolved by that event.[427] The most
remarkable circumstance attending those lieutenancies was that they were
sometimes conferred on the heir apparent during his infancy. The Black
Prince, then duke of Cornwall, was left guardian of the realm in 1339,
when he was but ten years old;[428] and Richard his son, when still
younger, in 1372, during Edward III.'s last expedition into France.[429]

[Sidenote: at the accession of Henry III.;]

[Sidenote: of Edward I.;]

[Sidenote: of Edward III.;]

[Sidenote: of Richard II.;]

These do not however bear a very close analogy to regencies in the
stricter sense, or substitutions during the natural incapacity of the
sovereign. Of such there had been several instances before it became
necessary to supply the deficiency arising from Henry's derangement. 1.
At the death of John, William earl of Pembroke assumed the title of
rector regis et regni, with the consent of the loyal barons who had just
proclaimed the young king, and probably conducted the government in a
great measure by their advice.[430] But the circumstances were too
critical, and the time is too remote, to give this precedent any
material weight. 2. Edward I. being in Sicily at his father's death, the
nobility met at the Temple church, as we are informed by a contemporary
writer, and, after making a new great seal, appointed the archbishop of
York, Edward earl of Cornwall, and the earl of Gloucester, to be
ministers and guardians of the realm; who accordingly conducted the
administration in the king's name until his return.[431] It is here
observable that the e