and now vast area. Constitutions or systems of government, themselves local reservoirs of executive and legislative power, have been founded in every part of the globe, and often remodelled and amended, sometimes by Acts passed with assent of the Imperial Parliament, but far more often by Letters Patent and Orders in Council which require no such assent. Newly-annexed peoples are governed by proclamations. At a later stage this embryonic form is replaced by ordinances made by Legislative Councils, themselves established by Royal decree. Everything flows directly or indirectly from the power immanent in the Sovereign. Governors and nominated members of Legislative Councils owe their commissions directly, and officials below them indirectly, to his delegation of power. In all these matters the assent of the King is not absolutely formal. The position has never been accepted that he is a mere 'signing' machine; yet his personal responsibility is disengaged, and precisely for that reason the real greatness of his position has risen.
If Tudor and Stuart Kings had the powers, they also had the cares and labours of Prime Ministers. They needed support in order to carry on government, and were therefore driven to be the leaders of political or religious parties. Charles I. owed his misfortunes to the fact that, in untoward times, he occupied the position of a Prime Minister who was in a permanent minority in the House of Commons, yet could not lay down his office. Now, the Sovereign is above party. If those who hold the reins direct affairs badly, or if, which is more usual, they direct them well but in opposition to erroneous and ill-informed popular feeling, the censure neither of the wise nor of the foolish any longer touches the throne. The monarch, no longer compelled to assert and defend power, can have no object of ambition save the love of his subjects and the good of his country. Should factious violence degrade the tone of politics, the higher by contrast stands that which is above party. The King can speak neither for a majority
