PREFACE. THESE pages are offered to the public with the hope and intent that they may encourage the preparation of Addresses to the Throne, at the present crisis, from all parts of the kingdom, embracing both or either of the objects mentioned in the Form following, which is not meant to be actually adopted, being capable of considerable compression (particularly by referring to, instead of quoting Acts of Parliament), but to furnish materials from which others of a similar character may be composed. All Addresses should be presented through Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department. 21st January, 1848. FORM OF ADDRESS. TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, VICTORIA, BY THE GRACE OF GOD OF THE UNITED KINGDOM The humble Address of MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN, of WE your Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects, the beg leave to approach your Majesty with the expression of our unalterable attachment to your sacred Person (1)' and Office, recognizing therein the Representative (2) and Deputy (3) of the Majesty of the Most High, who "ruleth over all the kingdoms of the world, and disposeth of them according to His good pleasure (4)." In token of which Similitude and Vicegerency, the laws and constitution of this realm have bestowed on your Majesty great privileges, powers, and prerogatives, the chiefest whereof is that of being Supreme (5) Governor within your dominions over all persons, in all causes, as well ecclesiastical as temporal. Which supremacy the laws ecclesiastical, in the 37th of the Articles of Religion, con1 See Appendix. firmed (5) by authority of Parliament, declare to be "such as hath been given always to all godly princes in Holy Scripture by God Himself;" and in the 2nd of the Canons (6) of 1603, to be "that which the godly kings had among the Jews (7), and Christian emperors (8) of the Primitive Church." But as (in the language of the admirable writer on Ecclesiastical Polity) "God is a law unto Himself, and to all other things besides (9);" so according to the ancient maxims of this realm, "the king is under God and the law, for the law makes the king, and the king must therefore render unto the law what the law renders unto him, namely, domination and command (10)." Trusting in these great and immutable principles, we most humbly venture to entreat your Majesty's gracious and serious consideration to some of the most eminent statutes made by your royal predecessors, and which have ever been held to be essential and fundamental parts of our glorious constitution. The first statute of Magna Charta, confirmed by numerous acts in successive reigns, in which a curse (11) is denounced on them that break it, contains the following stipulation (12): "First, we have granted to God, and by this our present Charter have confirmed for us and our heirs for ever, that the Church of England shall be free and shall have all her whole rights and liberties inviolable (13)." At a later period, when the ancient jurisdiction of the Crown over the State Ecclesiastical was restored, the Act passed in the 24th year of the reign of King Henry VIII. recites as follows: "Where by divers sundry old authentick histories and chronicles, it is manifestly declared and expressed, that this realm of England is an empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one supreme head and king, having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial crown of the same; unto whom a body politick, compact of all sorts and degrees of people, divided in terms, and by names of spirituality and temporality, been bounden and owen to bear, next to God, a natural and humble obedience; he being also institute and furnished, by the good |