]
[Footnote 290: To illustrate this position, Lord Lyndhurst said: "The
sovereign may by his prerogative, if he thinks proper, create a hundred
peers with descendible qualities in the course of a day. That would be
consistent with the prerogative, and would be perfectly legal; but
everybody must feel, and everybody must know, that such an exercise of
the undoubted prerogative of the crown would be a flagrant violation of
the principles of the constitution. In the same manner the sovereign
might place the Great Seal in the hands of a layman wholly unacquainted
with the laws of the country. That also would be a flagrant violation of
the constitution of this country."--Hansard's _Parliamentary Debates_,
cxl., February 7, 1856. In the same debate Lord Derby defined
"prerogative" as "the power of doing that which is beside the law."
Hallam, in discussing the prosecution of Sir Edward Hales, fully
recognizes the principle contended for by Lord Lyndhurst, saying that
"it is by no means evident that the decision of the judges" in that case
"was against law," but proceeding to show that "the unadvised assertion
in a court of law" of such an exercise of the prerogative "may be said
to have sealed the condemnation of the house of Stuart."--
_Constitutional History_, vol. iii., c. xiv.
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