Excerpt from The History of the Life and Reign of William the Fourth, the Reform Monarch of England: Comprising an Interesting Detail of the Scenes of His Private and Public Life; With an Historical Account of the Important Events of His Memorable Reign Including Political Portraits of the Celebrated Men The greatest pride of a Briton, is his political Constitution, for by it he becomes invested with rights and privileges, which impart to him a character never to be discovered in the subjects of other countries, and place him in the highest scale of civilized life. An hereditary Monarchy, is one of the first principles of that Constitution; and the general consent of the people, evidenced by long and immemorial usage, has vested the executive power of the English Government, in the person of the King, or Queen; for, it is indifferent to which sex the Crown descends. The consent of the people, however, is not to be as under stood, as though there were really a time and a place, when and where the population of the Island met together to choose their King: there being no trace of any such event in history. And although this choice of the people, is a favourite article in the creed of some speculative politicians, it is probable that the fact never existed in any country, since the world began. Nothing, at least is farther from the truth, than that the Crown is so held by the King of England. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.