The Sun.
London, England, 1821-07-06 00:00:00

PRIVY COUNCIL.

THE QUEEN'S RIGHT TO BE CROWNED.
At ten o'clock, yesterday morning, the Privy
Council met at Whitehall, to hear her MAJESTY'S
Counsel in support of the Queen's legal right to
be crowned with the KING at the approaching so-
lemnity of the Coronation. For many years so
large a Privy Council had not met, there being
48 Privy Councillors present, together with a
large assemblage of Members of Parliament who
are not of the Council. We observed at the Coun-
cil table—

Their Royal Highnesses the Dukes of York and Clarence ;
and within the railing the Lord Chancellor, the Lord President
of.the Council (the Earl of Harrowby), the Lord Privy Seal
(the Earl of Westmorland), the First LOrd of the Treasury
(the Earl of Live Tool) ; the Secretaries of State, the Marquess
of Londonderry, Larl Bathurst, and Lord Sidmouth; the Mas-
ter-General of the Ordnance, the Duke of Wellington ; the
Earl of Lauderdale; Sir Charles Long, the Lord Steward; the
Marquess of Cholmondeley ; Lord Chamberlain, the Marquess
of Hertford ; the Duke of Montrose., the Master of the Horse ;
Mr. B. Bathurst Mr. Wellesley. Pole ; Mr. Peel ; besides
the Members of the Cabinet, who were all present, there were
Lord Chief Justice Abbott, the Lord Chief Baron, Chief
Justice. Dallas, and the Master of the Rolls, and Sirs Wm. Scott
and John Nicholl, the Earl of Donoughmore, Lord Melville,
Lord Amherst, Lord Binning, Lord Teignmouth, Lord Yar-
mouth, Mr. Robinson, Mr. 'Wallace, Mr. Tierney, Mr. Bec-
kett, Mr. Arbuthnot, Mr. HuSkisson, and many other official
characters were present. Sir J. Mackintosh, Sir G. Hill, Mr.
Calcraft,,And several other Members of the House of Commons,
were among the spectators. At the end of the table stood Mr.
Brougham and Mr. Denman, ter Majesty's Attorney and Soli-
citor-Generals, and Dr. Lushington ; Mr. Wilde and Mr.Wil-
Ham§ were in attendance, but not in their forensic habits. The
King's Attorney and Solicitor-Generals sat near the Lord Chan-
cellor, at the opposite end of the table.
As soon as the Members had taken their seats,
no objection was made to the admission of
strangers; the small space near the door, which
is only capable of containing about a dozen per-
sons, was instantly filled. The Clerk of the
Council, at five minutes past 10 o'clock, pro-
ceeded to read the three Memorials transmitted
by her Majesty to the King, and to the King in
Council, asserting her legal right to participate in
the -honours of the Coronation, and praying that
the necessary arrangements for that purpose shall
be taken and communicated to her Majesty.
,The Clerk also read the Order of the Council,
that her Majesty should
.be heard by Counsel in
obedience to the prayer of her Memorials, at 10
o'clock on that morning.
Mr. BROUGHAM rose, at ten minutes past 10
o'clock, to state her Majesty's claim. He ob-
served, that he had a communication to make at
the outset, to which he claimed their Lordships'
attention. No man was more anxious than him-
self to obey her Majesty's commands in facili-
tating, with the least possible delay, the adjudi-
cation of the Privy Council upon the nature of
the right which the Queen legally claimed. But
he had a very short time since (we understood
the Learned Counsel to say the day before yes-
terday,) heard that there was an ancient book
deposited in the care of the Dean and Chapter of
Westminster, called the " Liber Regalis,"—and
which was a written formula of the ceremonies
to be observed at the coronation of a Sovereign.
It was in fact the book in virtue of the records in
which the Dean and Chapter were always admitted
" to instruct" the King, and if the Queen shall be
found, to instruct her.also, as to the parts of the
ceremony which they are to observe during the
solemnity. Her Majesty's Counsel had lost no
time in applying for permission to examine this
ancient record ; but he regretted to say, that.
their application was not attended with that
courteous facility of access, which they had to
acknowledge the kindness of receiving in other
quarters of reference that it became necessary
for them to make in behalf of her Majesty during
their research. The Dean and Chapter replied
to the application of her Majesty's Counsel, to
see the „Liber Regalis, that they would not grant
the request .without sufficient authority or legal ,
sanction. In answer to a second application for
the purpose of .knowing what they would consider
as sufficient authority, they replied, that the autho-
rity they_required was " the highest authority."
Application was again made to them to know what
they considered to be the highest authority, and
the reply was, " either the Crown or a Court of
Law." Application was then made to some of
the Members of the Privy Council, but no con-
clusive answer being returned, and the process by
mandamus in a Court of Law _being necessarily
tedious, and liable to stand over until the last
day of Term, she had now to apply to the Coun-
cil, either that their Lordships would use the in-
fluence of their.authority to obtain the book, or
that they would allow her Majesty's Claim to
stand over until the process of law should obtain
the. desired object. His opinion was, that the
Privy sCouncil, if they pleased to exercise it, had
the authority to order the prodUction of this
book; for, on the 25th Feb. ICB.I-, they ordered
the Lord Keeper and other Commissioners of
Records to prOduce them before the Council, re-
lating to the Coronation of James 11. .
The LORD
.CHANGF.I.IOIt said, that the book
might be sent. for, but it was for the Learned-
Counsel to endeavour to make out his right -so
far .as he could do so from such other sources as
he had examined, and to show that the Liber Re-
galls contained matter essential to his purpose,
-Mr. BuonoitAm said, that he had; in the Cot-
ton Manuscripts, seen collectionS stated to have
been extracted from the book,-and from them
he assumed the book itself to be material for'his
purpose._

-
The Earl of llAan.owny said, that they should
send to the Dean and Chapter,and Mr. Brougham
might go on in the mean time, subject to a future
reference of his extracts with the original, if he
deemed it necessary to refer to them in his argu-
ment before the arrival of the book from the
Dean and Chapter.
After a short conversation as to the form of
proceeding between the Lord Chancellor, the

Earl of narrowby, and Mr. Brougham, the latter
said he would, as it seemed to be the opinion of
their Lordships, prcceed with his argument with-
out at present delaying the Council until the,ar-
rival of the hook.

, .
Mr. BaouGnam then commenced by observing,
that the duty which devolved upon him as one
of her Majesty's Counsel,' was to argue the ques-_
tion whether the Queen Consort of these realms,
as a matter of right, ought to be crowned. That
the King had the right of being crowned IvirS.a
proposition which he thought he should have no
difficulty of supporting ; and that the Queen en-
joyed the same right, he thought he could esta-
blish upon exactly the same legal ground. The
ground upon which he mainly relied was a uni-
form, uninterrupted practice, in the sense in
which he thought he should be permitted to use
and avail hiMself of these terms in a Court of
Justice, and in which he should be justified in
establishing out of them the legal existence of
any private right. That some interruptions
had arisen in this uniform practiCe he was ere-
pared to admit and explain, for they were such
as did not affect the
,Uninterrupted right ; but, iii
the mode in which he had to account for them,
rather-sanctioned and confirmed it. There would
be two propositions which he entreated their
Lordships to bear in mind while he went through .
Isis narrative, of historical facts.. The first was
the uniform exercise of the right ; namely, that
no King had ever- been crowned, being married
at the time of his Coronation, without the Queen
Consort herself partaking with_ the King in the
solemnity of the Coronation ; and, - secondly,
that there never was a Queen Consort inEng-
land who had not partaken of the ceremony of
the Coronation ; but in making these two propo-
sitions he begged of course to be understood, as
using them subject to the usual qualifications of
general propositions ; which iv-ere—being bound
to shew that where any interruptions had existed,
they did not compromise the general right. With
interruptions as to the first proposition he. had.
but one to contend, which was capable of easy
solution. As to the second, he could easily and
satisfactorily explain whatever exceptions had
arisen, for they were few, and tended to confirm
the right of the Queen Consort. He would now
call the attention of their Lordships to the series
of precedents he had to quote from former reigns
in support of the uniform right. It was said that
the time of Richard the First was the, point to
which it might be sufficient to trace the prece-
dents, as before that they were vague and unde-
fined ; but he was prepared not to content him-
self with only beginning at Richard the First—
for he had authentic materials to show the uniform
practice which he affirmed through the whole range
of British history. It was said that there was
some doubt whether, in point of, fact, Queens
had been crowned in the early period of Saxon
history, but there could be none in the later
Saxon times, as he was prepared to show. lie
did not mean to carry their Lordships into the
early ages of Kings, when the right -was settled
on the field, of .battle, and the ceremony of
crowning alone consisted of the ,crown being
held over the head of the Sovereign, and tha
right acknowledged by the assenting shouts of
the conquering army in the field. 1 f that were
to be termed the origin of the ceremony of
the Coronation, then, inleed, it was clear, front
the nature of the circumstances, that a Queen
could not partake in the ceremony ; but thsTe
was no reason whatever for doubting, that when
a more settled order of things prevailed,-the Saxon
Queens as well as the Kings. alike partoOk of
the solemnity. He inferred the right of gieens
to participate in the solemnity so early 'as the
Saxon times, from the circumstance of a law
being passed, in the year 784, excluding Queen
'Adelbriga from the ceremony of being croWned
Queen of the West Saxons, because she had mur-
dered her husband. According to Spelman,
Selden, and Speed, this Act was.severely exer-
cised, and considered at'the time as a severe pu-,
nishment to Adelbriga for .her atrocious act.—
The law was recorded by the antiquarians who
reviewed the early periods of history, as being a
deviation from the ordinary course, and an alter-
ation alone justified by the nmraler attributed to
the Queen. On reference to the Saxon chro-
nicles, it would be found, that Judith, wife of
Athelwolf, King Of the'West Saxons, in the. year
856, according to the •ptii chapter of Selden, was
crowned at Rheims, and snbseqdentiy (as we
understood Mr. Brougham) in linglatrd, in the
words of the record, " like other Queens ;"as-
suming, therefore, the coronation of the Queen
to be as a matter of course, and she was crowned
in the same place arid:Manner as the King. That
this was, the case' and'' that it was the uniform
practice, was,hetlidtight, quite clear, froth the
whole of the facts and reasoning in Selden's
chapter," of Honours," which was ' a general
review of those appertaining to'' the coronations
which had been solemnized, in the preceding six
centuries ; and When :their' Lordships Considered
that Selden wrote •in tlie*yearyi79, his -autho-
'Hiles, as laid open in his book, comprised a- pe-
riod which went back to about-the Norman Con-
quest. There was 'an ancient collection, em-
bracing a coronation formula ; it was .called—
. " Ordo Coronationis Ethelridi
.Secnntli;" but
what followed Was. more to hiS present purpose—
" Fink consacraao 11.9;i5. Quarn rgrquitur consecratisßeginx,
" tine proprer honorontentiam .ab'ep realm &will unguinis oleo
" :;taper verticern.perfundendosest et in .c.,denia coram optima-
" thus' cum condign° honore et re;;ia .calsitudine in Teg22is
" thori consortium -benedicerd et coasecranda 'est, eine etiam
- "'went° pro integritate fidei, ' et 'corona pro Irternitatis
" cloria decoranda est." The worts he had: quoted sho,icd
the ceremonial fdr the Q,u6eniformally primeilgatmt at so ear:y
' a period as that to 'Which ho lead refernxi. It was an autheatic
order from 'competent authority.- Such was the solemnity's
described in an ancient and venerable order of ceremonial, en-
r ;;oiniug attention for the Queen's CoronatiJn, in the same I:4)x