HTH.

OF THE KING'S REVENUE.

HAVING, in the preceding chapter, considered at large those branches
of the king's prerogative, which contribute to his royal dignity, and
constitute the executive power of the government, we proceed now to
examine the king's _fiscal_ prerogatives, or such as regard his
_revenue_; which the British constitution hath vested in the royal
person, in order to support his dignity and maintain his power: being
a portion which each subject contributes of his property, in order to
secure the remainder.

THIS revenue is either ordinary, or extraordinary. The king's ordinary
revenue is such, as has either subsisted time out of mind in the
crown; or else has been granted by parliament, by way of purchase or
exchange for such of the king's inherent hereditary revenues, as were
found inconvenient to the subject.

WHEN I say that it has subsisted time out of mind in the crown, I do
not mean that the king is at present in the actual possession of the
whole of this revenue. Much (nay, the greatest part) of it is at this
day in the hands of subjects; to whom it has been granted out from
time to time by the kings of England: which has rendered the crown in
some measure dependent on the people for it's ordinary support and
subsistence. So that I must be obliged to recount, as part of the
royal revenue, what lords of manors and other subjects frequently
look upon to be their own absolute rights, because they are and have
been vested in them and their ancestors for ages, though in reality
originally derived from the grants of our antient princes.

I. THE first of the king's ordinary revenues, which I shall take
notice of, is of an ecclesiastical kind; (as are also the three
succeeding ones) viz. the custody of the temporalties of bishops; by
which are meant all the lay revenues, lands, and tenements (in which
is included his barony) which belong to an archbishop's or bishop's
see. And these upon the vacancy of the bishoprick are immediately the
right of the king, as a consequence of his prerogative in church
matters; whereby he is considered as the founder of all
archbishopricks and bishopricks, to whom during the vacancy they
revert. And for the same reason, before the dissolution of abbeys, the
king had the custody of the temporalties of all such abbeys and
priories as were of royal foundation (but not of those founded by
subjects) on the death of the abbot or prior[a]. Another reason may
also be giv