at the
legislature has first ordained: but a proclamation for allowing arms
to papists, or for disarming any protestant subjects, will not bind;
because the first would be to assume a dispensing power, the latter a
legislative one; to the vesting of either of which in any single
person the laws of England are absolutely strangers. Indeed by the
statute 31 Hen. VIII. c. 8. it was enacted, that the king's
proclamations should have the force of acts of parliament: a statute,
which was calculated to introduce the most despotic tyranny; and which
must have proved fatal to the liberties of this kingdom, had it not
been luckily repealed in the minority of his successor, about five
years after[i].

[Footnote g: 3 Inst. 162.]

[Footnote h: 4 Mod. 177, 179.]

[Footnote i: Stat. 1 Edw. VI. c. 12.]

IV. THE king is likewise the fountain of honour, of office, and of
privilege: and this in a different sense from that wherein he is
stiled the fountain of justice; for here he is really the parent of
them. It is impossible that government can be maintained without a
due subordination of rank; that the people may know and distinguish
such as are set over them, in order to yield them their due respect
and obedience; and also that the officers themselves, being encouraged
by emulation and the hopes of superiority, may the better discharge
their functions: and the law supposes, that no one can be so good a
judge of their several merits and services, as the king himself who
employs them. It has therefore intrusted with him the sole power of
conferring dignities and honours, in confidence that he will bestow
them upon none, but such as deserve them. And therefore all degrees of
nobility, of knighthood, and other titles, are received by immediate
grant from the crown: either expressed in writing, by writs or letters
patent, as in the creations of peers and baronets; or by corporeal
investiture, as in the creation of a simple knight.

FROM the same principle also arises the prerogative of erecting and
disposing of offices: for honours and offices are in their nature
convertible and synonymous. All offices under the crown carry in the
eye of the law an honour along with them; because they imply a
superiority of parts and abilities, being supposed to be always filled
with those that are most able to execute them. And, on the other hand,
all honours in their original had duties or offices annexed to them:
an earl, _comes_, was the conservat