ers, he admits and institutes the clerk of that patron whom they return as the true one, the bishop secures himself at all events from being a disturber, whatever proceedings may be had afterwards in the temporal courts.

The clerk refused by the bishop may also have a remedy against him in the spiritual court, denominated a duplex querela: (g) which is a complaint in the nature of an appeal from the ordinary to his next immediate superior; as from a bishop to the archbishop, or from an archbishop to the delegates; and if the superior court adjudges the cause of refusal to be insufficient, it will grant institution to the appellant.

Thus far matters may go on in the mere ecclesiastical course; but in contested presentations they seldom go so far; for, upon the first delay or refusal of the bishop to admit his clerk, the patron usually brings his writ of quare impedit against the bishop, for the temporal injury done to his property, in disturbing him in the presentation. And, if the delay arises from the bishop alone, as upon pretence of incapacity, or the like, then he only is named in the writ; but if there be another presentation set up, then the pretended patron and his clerk are also joined in the action; or it may be brought against the patron and clerk, leaving out the bishop; or against the patron only. But it is most advisable to bring it against all three: for if the bishop be left out, and the suit be not determined till the six months are past, the bishop is entitled to present by lapse; for he is not party to the suit; (r) but, if he be named, no lapse can possibly accrue till the right is determined. If the patron be left out, and the writ be brought only against the bishop and the clerk, the suit is of no effect, and the writ shall abate: (s) for the right of the patron is the principal question in the cause. (t) If the *clerk be left out, and has received institution before action brought (as is sometimes the case), [*248] the patron by this suit may recover his right of patronage, but not the present turn; for he cannot have judgment to remove the clerk, unless he be made a defendant, and party to the suit, to hear what he can allege against it. For which reason, it is the safer way to insert all three in the writ.

The writ of quare impedit (u) commands the disturbers, the bishop, the pseudo-patron and his clerk, to permit the plaintiff to present a proper person (without specifying the particular clerk), to such a vacant church, which pertains to his patronage; and which the defendants, as he alleges, do obstruct; and unless they so do, then that they appear in court to show the reason why they hinder him.

Immediately on the suing out of the quare impedit, if the plaintiff suspects that the bishop will admit the defendant's or any other clerk, pending the suit, he may have a prohibitory writ, called a ne admittas, (w) which recites the contention begun in the king's courts, and forbids the bishop to admit any clerk whatsoever till such contention be determined. And if the bishop doth, after the receipt of this writ, admit any person, even though the patron's right may have been found in a jure patronatus, then the plaintiff, after he has obtained judgment in the quare impedit, may remove the incumbent, if the clerk of a stranger, by writ of scire facias: (c) and shall have a special action against the bishop, called a quare incumbravit; (4) to recover the presentation, and also satisfaction in damages for the injury done him by incumbering the church with a clerk, pending the suit, and after the ne admittas received. (y) But if the bishop has incumbered the church by instituting the clerk, before the ne admittas issued, no quare incumbravit lies: for the bishop hath no legal notice, till the writ of ne admittas is served upon *him. The patron [*249] is therefore left to his quare impedit merely; which, as was before observed, now lies (since the statute of Westm. 2) as well upon a recent usurpa

tion within six months past, as upon a disturbance without any usurpation had.

In the proceedings upon a quare impedit, the plaintiff must set out his title at length, and prove at least one presentation in himself, his ancestors, or those under whom he claims; for he must recover by the strength of his own right, and not by the weakness of the defendant's: (z) and he must also show a disturbance before the action brought. (a) Upon this the bishop and the clerk usually disclaim all title: save only, the one as ordinary, to admit and institute; and the other as presentee of the patron, who is left to defend his own right. And upon failure of the plaintiff in making out his own title, the defendant is put upon the proof of his, in order to obtain judgment for himself, if needful. But if the right be found for the plaintiff, on the trial, three farther points are also to be inquired: 1. If the church be full, and, if full, then of whose presentation: for if it be of the defendant's presentation, then the clerk is removable by writ brought in due time. 2. Of what value the living is: and this in order to assess the damages which are directed to be given by the statute of Westm. 2. 3. In case of plenarty upon an usurpation, whether six calendar (6) months have passed between the avoidance and the time of bringing the action: for then it would not be within the statute, which permits an usurpation to be devested by a quare impedit, brought infra tempus semestre. So that plenarty is still a sufficient bar in an action of quare impedit, brought above six months after the vacancy happens; as it was universally by the common law, however early the action was commenced.

If it be found that the plaintiff hath the right, and hath commenced his action in due time, then he shall have *judgment to recover the pre[*250] sentation; and, if the church be full by institution of any clerk, to remove him: unless it were filled pendente lite by lapse to the ordinary, he not being party to the suit: in which case the plaintiff loses his presentation pro hac vice, but shall recover two years' full value of the church from the defendant, the pretended patron, as a satisfaction for the turn lost by his disturbance; or in case of insolvency, the defendant shall be imprisoned for two years. (c) But if the church remains still void at the end of the suit, then whichever party the presentation is found to belong to, whether plaintiff or defendant, shall have a writ directed to the bishop ad admittendum clericum, (d) reciting the judgment of the court, and ordering him to admit and institute the clerk of the prevailing party; and, if upon this order he does not admit him, the patron may sue the bishop in a writ of quare non admisit, (e) and recover ample satisfaction in damages.

Besides these possessory actions there may be also had (as hath before been incidentally mentioned) a writ of right of advowson, (5) which resembles other writs of right: the only distinguishing advantage now attending it being, that it is more conclusive than a quare impedit; since to an action of quare impedit a recovery had in a writ of right may be pleaded in bar.

There is no limitation with regard to the time within which any actions touching advowsons are to be brought; at least none later than the times of Richard I, and Henry III: for by statute 1 Mar. st. 2, c. 5, the statute of limitations, 32 Hen. VIII, c. 2, is declared not to extend to any writ of right of advowson, quare impedit, or assize of darrein presentment or jus patronatus. And this upon very good reason: because it may very easily happen that the title to an advowson may not come in question, nor the right have opportunity to be tried, within sixty years; which is the longest period of limitation assigned by the statute of Henry VIII. For Sir Edward Coke (ƒ) tells us, that there was a parson of one of his *churches, that had been incumbent

[*251] there above fifty years; nor are instances wanting wherein two succes

(z) Vaugh. 7, 8.

(d) F. N. B. 38.

(a) Hob. 199.
(e) Ibid. 47.

(b) 2 Inst. 361.
(f) 1 Inst. 115.

(c) Stat. Westm. 2, 18 Edw. I, c. 5, § 3.

(5) Abolished by statute 3 and 4 Wm. IV, c. 27.

sive incumbents have continued for upwards of a hundred years. (g) Had, therefore, the last of these incumbents been the clerk of a usurper, or had he been presented by lapse, it would have been necessary and unavoidable for the patron, in case of a dispute, to have recurred back above a century; in order to have shown a clear title and seisin by presentation and admission of the prior incumbent. But though, for these reasons, a limitation is highly improper with respect only to the length of time; yet, as the title of advowson is, for want of some limitation, rendered more precarious than that of any other hereditament (especially since the statute of Queen Anne hath allowed possessory actions to be brought upon any prior presentation, however distant), it might not perhaps be amiss if a limitation were established with respect to the number of avoidances; or, rather, if a limitation were compounded of the length of time and the number of avoidances together; for instance, if no seisin were admitted to be alleged in any of these writs of patronage, after sixty years and three avoidances were past. (6)

In a writ of quare impedit, which is almost the only real action that remains in common use, and also in the assize of darrein presentment, and writ of right, the patron only, and not the clerk, is allowed to sue the disturber. But, by virtue of several acts of parliament, (h) there is one species of presentations, in which a remedy, to be sued in the temporal courts, is put into the hands of the clerks presented, as well as of the owners of the advowson. I mean the presentation to such benefices as belong to Roman Catholic patrons; which, according to their several counties, are vested in and secured to the two universities of this kingdom. And particularly by the statute of 12 Ann. st. 2, c. 14, s. 4, a new method of proceeding is provided, viz.: that, besides the writs of quare impedit, which the universities, as patrons, are entitled to bring, they, or their clerks, may be at liberty to file a bill *in equity [*252] against any person presenting to such livings, and disturbing their right of patronage, or his cestuy que trust, or any other person whom they have cause to suspect; in order to compel a discovery of any secret trusts for the benefit of papists, in evasion of those laws whereby this right of advowson is vested in those learned bodies; and also (by the statute 11 Geo. II, c. 17) to compel a discovery whether any grant or conveyance, said to be made of such advowson, were made bona fide to a Protestant purchaser, for the benefit of Protestants, and for a full consideration; without which requisites, every such grant and conveyance of any advowson or avoidance is absolutely null and void. This is a particular law, and calculated for a particular purpose: but in no instance but this does the common law permit the clerk himself to interfere in recovering a presentation of which he is afterwards to have the advantage. For, besides that he has (as was before observed) no temporal right in him till after institution and induction; and, as he therefore can suffer no wrong, is consequently entitled to no remedy; this exclusion of the clerk from being plaintiff seems also to arise from the very great honour and regard which the law pays to his sacred function. For it looks upon the cure of souls as too arduous and important a task to be eagerly sought for by any serious clergyman; and, therefore, will not permit him to contend openly at law for a charge and trust which it presumes he undertakes with diffidence.

But when the clerk is in full possession of the benefice, the law gives him the same possessory remedies to recover his glebe, his rents, his tithes, and other ecclesiastical dues, by writ of entry, assize, ejectment, debt, or trespass (as the case may happen), which it furnishes to the owners of lay property.

(9) Two successive incumbents of the rectory of Chelsfield-cum-Farnborough, in Kent, continued one hundred and one years, of whom the former was admitted in 1650, the latter in 1700, and died in 1751. (h) Stat. 8 Jac. I, c. 5. 1 W. and M. c. 26. 12 Anne, st. 2, c. 14. 11 Geo. II, c. 17.

(6) The statute 6 and 7 Vic., c. 54, applies the same period of limitations to a quare impedit or any other action or suit to enforce a right in a bishop as patron to collate to or be stow any ecclesiastical benefice.

Yet he shall not have a writ of right, nor such other similar writs as are grounded upon the mere right; because he hath not in him the entire fee and right; (i) but he is entitled to a special remedy called a writ of juris utrum, [*253] which is sometimes styled the parson's writ of right, (k) *being the highest writ which he can have. () (7) This lies for a parson or a prebendary at common law, and for a vicar by statute 14 Edw. III, c. 17, and is in the nature of an assize, to inquire whether the tenements in question are frankalmoign belonging to the church of the demandant, or else the lay fee of the tenant. (m) And thereby the demandant may recover lands and tenements belonging to the church, which were alienated by the predecessor; or of which he was disseised; or which were recovered against him by verdict, confession, or default, without praying in aid of the patron and ordinary; or on which any person has intruded since the predecessor's death. (n) ́But since the restraining statute of 13 Eliz. c. 10, whereby the alienation of the predecessor, or a recovery suffered by him of the lands of the church, is declared to be absolutely void, this remedy is of very little use, unless where the parson himself has been deforced for more than twenty years; (o) for the successor, at any competent time after his accession to the benefice, may enter, or bring an ejectment.

CHAPTER XVII.

OF INJURIES PROCEEDING FROM, OR AFFECTING, THE CROWN.

HAVING in the nine preceding chapters considered the injuries, or private wrongs, that may be offered by one subject to another, all of which are redressed by the command and authority of the king, signified by his original writs returnable in the several courts of justice, which thence derive a jurisdiction of examining and determining the complaint; I proceed now to inquire into the mode of redressing those injuries to which the crown itself is a party: which injuries are either where the crown is the aggressor, and which, therefore, cannot, without a solecism, admit of the same kind of remedy; (a) or else is the sufferer, and which then are usually remedied by peculiar forms of process appropriated to the royal prerogative. In treating, therefore, of these, we will consider, first, the manner of redressing those wrongs or injuries which a subject may suffer from the crown, and then of redressing those which the crown may receive from a subject.

I. That the king can do no wrong, is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution: meaning only, as has formerly been observed, (b) that in the first place, whatever may be amiss in the conduct of public affairs is not chargeable personally on the king; nor is he, but his ministers, [*255] accountable for it to the people: and, secondly, that the prerogative of the crown extends not to do any injury: for being created for the benefit of the people, it cannot be exerted to their prejudice. (c) Whenever therefore it happens, that, by misinformation, or inadvertence, the crown hath been induced to invade the private rights of any of its subjects, though no action will lie against the sovereign, (d) (for who shall command the king?) (e) yet the law hath furnished the subject with a decent and respectful mode of removing that

(i) F. N. B. 49.

(m) Registrar. 32.

(k) Booth, 221.
(n) F. N. B. 48, 49.
(a) Bro. Abr. tit. petition, 12; tit. prerogative, 2.
(c) Plowd. 487. (d) Jenkins, 78.

(1) F. N. B. 48.
(0) Booth, 221.
(b) Book I, ch. 7, pp. 243-246.
(e) Finch, L. 83.

(7) Abolished by statute 3 and 4 Wm. IV, c. 27.

invasion, by informing the king of the true state of the matter in dispute: and, as it presumes that to know of any injury and to redress it are inseparable in the royal breast, it then issues as of course, in the king's own name, his orders to his judges to do justice to the party aggrieved. (1)

The distance between the sovereign and his subjects is such, that it rarely can happen that any personal injury can immediately and directly proceed from the prince to any private man; and, as it can so seldom happen, the law in decency supposes that it never will or can happen at all; because it feels itself incapable of furnishing any adequate remedy, without infringing the dignity and destroying the sovereignty of the royal person, by setting up some superior power with authority to call him to account. The inconveniency therefore of a mischief that is barely possible, is (as Mr. Locke has observed) (ƒ) well recompensed by the peace of the public and security of the government, in the person of the chief magistrate being set out of the reach of coercion. But injuries to the rights of property can scarcely be committed by the crown without the intervention of its officers; for whom the law in matters of right entertains no respect or delicacy, but furnishes various methods of detecting the errors or misconduct of those agents, by whom the king has been deceived, and induced to do a temporary injustice. (2)

*The common law methods of obtaining possession or restitution from the crown, of either real or personal property, are, 1. By petition [*256] de droit, or petition of right: which is said to owe its original to King Edward the First. (g) 2. By monstrans de droit, manifestation or plea of right: both of which may be preferred or prosecuted either in the chancery or exchequer. (h) The former is of use, where the king is in full possession of any hereditaments or chattels, and the petitioner suggests such a right as controverts the title of the crown, grounded on facts disclosed in the petition itself; in which case he must be careful to state truly the whole title of the crown, otherwise the petition shall abate (i) and then, upon this answer being endorsed or underwritten by the king, soit droit fait al partie (let right be done to the party), (j) a commission shall issue to inquire of the truth of this suggestion: () after (f) On Govt. p. 2, § 205. (g) Bro. Abr. tit. prerogative, 2. Fitz. Abr. tit. error, 8. (h) Skin. 609. (1) Finch, L. 256. (j) Stat. Tr. vii, 134.

(k) Skin. 608. Rast. Entr. 461.

(1) The maxim that the king can do no wrong, has no place in American constitutional law. No officer or dignitary is so high as to be above the law, and no individual is so low as not to be entitled to its protection. If a citizen is injured in his rights by the act of an officer of the government, he has his remedy, as he would have had if the injury had proceeded from any other person. If the act which constitutes the injury would be a crime in a private citizen, it would be a crime in the officer also. If however the wrong doer is the chief executive officer of the nation or state, and constitutes as such a department of the government, he is to be tried for criminal conduct not in the ordinary courts, but upon impeachment before the high court created by the constitution for the purpose. The punishment, if he is found guilty, may extend in some cases to removal from office. The state itself, which is the sovereign people in corporate organization, can no more wrong an individual with impunity than can any private person. Indeed as the state must act by agents, if its acts are wrongful, every one engaged in them is a wrong-doer, and the state may be ignored and its agents held to accountability. The state itself, however, is not suable except with its own consent; ante, Book 1, p. 243, n.; it being inconsistent with its sovereignty that it should be brought against its will into courts which are created and exist only at its pleasure. The state may also, when providing for its own needs under the right of eminent domain, and taking for the purpose the property of individuals, give all necessary protection to its agents, and turn the owner over to such remedy-provided it be adequate as its laws shall provide. Compare Hooker v. New Haven, &c., Co., 14 Conn., 146; S. C., 36 Am. Dec., 477, with People v. Green, 3 Mich., 496. If in any case the remedy which the state gives against itself is inadequate, it is presumed an appeal to the legislature will result in a suitable redress of the grievance. See United States v. McLemore, 4 How., 286; Hill v. United States, 9 How., 386.

The proceedings on behalf of a subject to obtain redress from the crown are simplified and made more effective by statute 23 and 24 Vic., c. 34, which gives the party a trial in the proper court of law or equity, upon an issue made up substantially as in a suit between individuals.

(2) See the Bankers' Case, and notes thereto, Broom. Const. Law, 235.