position, that queens-consort had, at all times throughout the ages of English history, themselves enjoyed the ceremony of the coronation. If in one or two instances this was not done at the time when the king's own coronation took place, and supposing that there was an instance or two where the queen-consort became such after the coronation of the king, still he would affirm, that according to all the rules of argument, of law, and of common sense, those few instances, (admitting there were some, though in point of strict fact he believed there were none,) did not in any manner or degree affect his general argument, which he held upon the authorities he had cited to be altogether incontrovertible. He was not before their lordships to show where the right which he asserted in behalf of the queen-consort had been claimed and refused. In every instance, in which it was actually possible for a coronation of a queen to take place, he had shown that it had been solemnized. There was not a single case which, quoad that case, cast a doubt upon the uniform force of his proposition, except that of Henrietta Maria, wife of

Charles the First; and he reminded their lordships, it was merely a doubt so far as that particular case went. He had a right then to assume the larger proposition, that all queensconsort of England had, in point of fact, been crowned. Nothing was clearer in the rules of equity and law, than that non-uses did not forfeit, unless where they clearly, from the length of the lapse, involved a waiver of the claim. Where a right had been disputed, and the opposition assented to by the party tacitly, or confirmed by a competent authority, then, of course, there was an end to the legal exercise of such a right. But here the very reverse was the fact. Suppose he were called upon to prove a right of way or a right of common, (the two instances in which the courts of law were most commonly called upon to consider the length of usage,) the principle of law would go with the uniformity, and the absence of exercising the right in one or two particular instances would prove nothing. There were three modes of calling into question the fact of usage; first, as to its uniform enjoyment; next, where the right claimed by the party

had been contested, but nevertheless enjoyed by the person exercising it; and the third case was, where the right asserted had been confiscated, and an adjudication passed upon it: that was of course held to be conclusive against the party, where the right claimed was refused, opposed, and not acquiesced in; then he admitted that no long admission of the right could be pleaded without the fatal interruption of the bar. He entreated their lordships to try the usage of the coronation of the queen-consort by these three principles of investigating such rights founded upon immemorial custom. Of the first, namely, uniform enjoyment, they had abundant proof. As to the second, namely, the occurrence of interruption in the exercise of the right, nonacquiescence in that interruption, a successful and most complete resistance to the attempt to withhold the exercise of the right, they had that, fully sustaining his proposition, in the case of the wife of Prince Henry; where Henry thought proper in his lifetime to crown his eldest son without also crowning that eldest son's consort. He had therefore with

him the uniform enjoyment of the right her Majesty claimed; then the successful resistance of an attempt, as in Henry's case, to delay the exercise of the right; and lastly, the total absence of any adjudication or confiscation, or any thing like either in any single instance against him. There was, in fact, no other possible way of showing the existence of the right, but in the manner in which he was assuming, proving, and, as he thought, establishing it. How else, before the Court of Claims, were rights of service at the ceremony of the coronation established? How else did the barons of the Cinque Ports show their right to carry the canopy over the king, and to have a part of that canopy for their service? Suppose any instance in which the barons should, for want of specific proof, in the lapse of ages, fail to show that they had exercised that privilege would that countervail the validity of their claim, founded on repeated usage? Certainly not. He would venture to

least half a dozen

say that there were at instances in which the barons could not show

they had exercised their asserted right: and

would any of these instances, where that proof failed, shake the firm hold of their long and undeniable usage? Upon a reference to the services which were to be performed at the ceremony of the coronation, it was clear, from the separate rights held upon the performance of particular kinds of attendance upon the queen, that her part of the ceremony was substantive, independent, and principal; that her right was clearly within herself, and not dependent upon the mere will of the King. So essential, indeed, was it that she should be crowned with all the forms of pomp which belonged to such a solemnity, that the same writs of summons were issued, and nearly the same demands of service made upon officers of state as when the king himself was crowned. The usage clearly governed the right, and more especially in this solemnity of coronation, which was altogether the creature of precedent, and existed only by its authority. The queen's coronation was in itself manifestly a substantive, important, and independent ceremony, illustrative of the right of the one party, and not dependent or contingent