various acts of parliament as a qualification for holding office. For by 1 Geo. I. stat. 2, c. 13, (amended by 2 Geo. II. c. 31, and 9 Geo. II. c. 26,) all persons admitted to any office, civil, naval or military (t), (with the exception of some few of an inferior kind,) are bound, at the peril of incurring loss of the appointment (u) and other disabilities and forfeitures, to take and subscribe, within six calendar months after their preferment, the oaths of allegiance, supremacy and abjuration (x); and by 9 Geo. IV. c. 17, they are also to subscribe the declaration prescribed by that act, in lieu of the sacramental test (y). In the case indeed of offices of trust in corporate towns, it is required (2), that the oaths of allegiance and supremacy shall be taken at the same time with the oath for the due execution of the duties (that is, upon admission); and that the declaration should be made and subscribed upon the same occasion, or within one calendar month previous thereto (a). But Quakers, Moravians and Separatists are allowed to make the declaration in a different form (b); and Jews have also an appropriate form of declaration (c); and with respect to Roman Catholics, the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration are dispensed with, and, in lieu thereof, they take the oath appropriate to that creed, and prescribed by 10 Geo. IV. c. 7 (d). An office, after it is granted, may be forfeited by mis provided it be in the form and with the ceremonies they declare to be binding, in the same manner as if it had been administered in the form and with the ceremonies most commonly adopted. (t) See 6 Geo. 3, c. 53; 57 Geo. 3, c. 92; et vide post, bk. Iv. pt. II. c. II. (u) It is to be observed, that for many years past an annual act of indemnity for omissions in this respect has been passed. The last act is 20 Vict. c. 7. (x) As to the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration, vide sup. pp. 407, 408. (y) As to this declaration, vide post, bk. Iv. pt. 11. c. 11. (z) 13 Car. 2, st. 2, c. 1, s. 12, amended by 5 Geo. 1, c. 6, s. 2. (a) 9 Geo. 4, c. 17, s. 2. See Reg. v. Humphry, 1 Will. Woll. & Hodg. 470. (b) 1 & 2 Vict. cc. 5, 15. (d) As to the Roman Catholic oath, vide post, bk. Iv. pt. II. c. II. conduct, of which Lord Coke enumerates three kinds,— abuser, as when a gaoler voluntarily permits a prisoner to escape; non-user, or neglect to attend to the duties; or, lastly, a refusal to perform them (e). And it is further laid down, that where incompatible offices are granted, the first becomes in some cases void, in others voidable only; and that the grant of an office is also void, if made to a person incapable, from his position, to perform its duties with impartiality (ƒ). Lastly, it is to be observed, that offices held under the crown become, in general, vacated by the demise of the crown (g). But by 1 Geo. III. c. 23, the commissions of the judges are continued notwithstanding that event; and by various other statutes (h) all public appointments are now in general continued for six months after the crown's demise. To return now to the particular officers enumerated at the outset, we will consider first, the law relating to sheriffs. I. [The sheriff is an officer of very great antiquity in this kingdom, his name being derived from two Saxon words reine genera, the reeve, bailiff or officer of the shire. He is called in Latin rice-comes, as being the deputy of the earl or comes; to whom the custody of the shire is said to have been committed at the first division of this kingdom into counties (i). But the earls, in process of time, by reason of their high employments and attendance on the king's person, not being able to transact the business of the county, were delivered of that burden (k); re (e) Co. Litt. 233 a; Bac. Ab. Office, M. (f) Com. Dig. Officer, B. 6; Arkwright v. Cantrell, 7 Ad. & El. 565; R. v. Patteson, 4 B. & Ad. 9. (g) Bac. Ab. Courts, C. (h) 7 & 8 Will. 3, c. 27, s. 21; 1 Ann. st. 1, c. 8; 4 Ann. c. 8, s. 8; 6 Ann. c. 7, s. 8; et vide 57 Geo. 3, c. 45. As to fees and stamps on new commissions, see 11 Geo. 4 & 1 Will. 4, c. 43; as to appointments in British possessions abroad, 1 Will. 4, c. 4. (i) As to this division, vide sup. vol. 1. p. 122. (k) Dalton, Of Sheriffs, c. 1. [serving to themselves the honour, but the labour was laid on the sheriff. So that now the sheriff does all the king's business in the county: and though he be still called vicecomes, yet he is entirely independent of and not subject to the earl; the crown committing custodiam comitatús to the sheriff, and him alone. Sheriffs were formerly chosen by the inhabitants of the several counties: in confirmation of which it was ordained by statute 28 Edw. I. c. 8, that the people should have election of sheriffs in every shire where the shrievalty is not of inheritance. For antiently in some counties the sheriffs were hereditary (7); as it is apprehended they were in Scotland till the statute 20 Geo. II. c. 43, and] as they continued in the county of Westmoreland, till the 13 & 14 Vict. c. 30 (m); -[the city of London having also the inheritance of the shrievalty of Middlesex vested in their body, by charter (n). The reason of these popular elections is assigned in the same statute, c. 13, "that the commons might chuse such as would not be a burthen to them." And herein appears plainly a strong trace of the (1) This office may descend to and be executed by a female; for Anne, Countess of Pembroke, had the office of hereditary sheriff of Westmoreland, and exercised it in person. At the assizes at Appleby she sat with the judges on the bench.-Harg. Co. Litt. 326. (Christian's Blackstone.) (m) The shrievalty of Westmoreland having been granted by King John to Robert de Veteripont and his heirs, came by descent to the late Earl of Thanet; and on the death of that nobleman in 1849, without issue, it became a question whether the office passed under a devise thereof in his will, or escheated to the crown; and to remedy this inconvenience, by the statute mentioned in the text, all hereditary claims and title to the office was abolished, and her majesty empowered to appoint as in other counties. See also 12 & 13 Vict. c. 102. (n) The election of the sheriffs of London and Middlesex was granted to the citizens of London for ever by a charter of Henry the first, upon condition of their paying 3007. a year to the king's exchequer. In the year 1799, the corporation of London made a bye-law imposing a fine of 4001. upon every person who, being elected, should refuse to serve the office of sheriff. See the case of Evans, Esq., and the Chamberlain of London, 2 Burn, E. L. 185. Christian's Blackstone, vol. i. p. 340. As to the shrievalty of London and Middlesex, see also 1 Man. & Gr. 544, n.; and Pulling's Customs of London, 134. [democratical part of our constitution; in which form of government it is an indispensable requisite that the people should choose their own magistrates (o). This election was in all probability not absolutely vested in the commons, but required the royal approbation. For in the Gothic constitution] the sheriffs [were elected by the people, but confirmed by the king, and the form of their election was thus managed: the people, or incolæ territorii, chose twelve electors, and these electors nominated three persons, ex quibus rex unum confirmabat (p). But with us in England, these popular elections, growing tumultuous, were put an end to by the statute 9 Edw. II. st. 2, which enacted that the sheriffs should from thenceforth be assigned by the chancellor, treasurer, and the judges, as being persons in whom the same trust might with confidence be reposed.] As to the manner in which this duty is to be performed, the [statute of Cambridge, 12 Ric. II. c. 2 (g), ordains, that the chancellor, treasurer, keeper of the privy seal, steward of the king's house, the king's chamberlain, clerk of the rolls, the justices of the one bench and the other, barons of the exchequer, and all other that shall be called to ordain, name, or make justices of the peace, sheriffs and other officers of the king, shall be sworn to act indifferently, and to appoint no man that sueth either privily or openly to be put in office, but such only as they shall judge to be the best and most sufficient. And the custom now is, (and has been at least ever since the time of Fortescue (r), who was chief justice and chancellor to Henry the sixth,) that all the judges, together with the other great officers and privy councillors, meet in the Exchequer on the morrow of All Souls yearly, (which day is now altered to the morrow of St. Martin by an act of George the second, for abbreviating Michaelmas Term (s),) and then and there the judges propose three persons] for (0) Montesquieu, Sp. L. b. ii. c. 2. (p) Stiern. De Jure Goth. 1. i. c. 3. (9) See also 14 Edw. 3, st. 1, c. 7 ; 23 Hen. 6, c. 9; 21 Hen. 8, c. 20. each county, [to be reported (if approved of) to the king, who afterwards appoints one of them to be sheriff (t) ;] and such appointment generally takes place about the end of the following Hilary Term (u). It is to be understood, however, that the ceremony here described is not observed upon the occasional appointment of a sheriff, as on the death of an existing officer; the appointment is then the mere act of the crown. But in general, the appointment of a pocket sheriff, that is, a sheriff not of the number nominated in the exchequer, seems to be considered by Blackstone as a practice of questionable legality (v); and after citing a case (x) where it was laid down that Queen Elizabeth might, by her prerogative, make a sheriff without the election of the judges, non obstante aliquo statuto in contrarium, he remarks that [the doctrine of non obstante, which sets the prerogative above the law, was effectually demolished by the Bill of Rights at the Revolution, and abdicated Westminster Hall when King James abdicated the kingdom.] By 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 99, it is provided, that whenever any person shall be duly pricked or nominated by his majesty to be sheriff of any county, except the county palatine of Lancaster, the same shall be forthwith notified in the London Gazette, and a warrant made out and signed by the clerk of the privy council, and transmitted to the person so appointed, and the appointment of sheriff thereby made shall be as valid to all intents as if it had been made by patent under the great seal, as formerly; and the sheriff (1) Bac. Ab. Sheriff, C. Blackstone remarks (vol. i. p. 341) that our custom of the twelve judges (for such in his time was the number of judges) proposing three persons, seems borrowed from the Gothic constitution above mentioned, with this difference, that among the Goths the twelve nominors were first elected by the people themselves. He conjectures, too, that this usage was, at its first introduction, founded upon some statute, though not now to be found among our printed laws. See also 2 Inst. 559. (u) By 8 & 9 Vict. c. 11, the manner of assigning and appointing sheriffs in Wales shall be the same as in England. (v) 1 Bl. Com. 340; see 2 Inst. 559. (x) Dy. 225, 226. |