Fountain of HONOUR. The king is so styled, as being the source of honours, dignities, &c. See PREROGATIVE.
It is impossible that government can be maintained without a due subordination of rank; that the people may know and distinguish such as are set over them, in order to yield them their due respect and obedience; and also that the officers themselves, being encouraged by emulation and the hopes of superiority, may the better discharge their functions; and the law supposes, that no one can be so good a judge of their several merits and services as the king himself who employs them. It has therefore entrusted him with the sole power of conferring dignities and honours, in confidence that he will bestow them upon none but such as deserve them. And therefore all degrees of nobility, of knighthood, and other titles, are received by immediate grant from the crown; either expressed in writing, by writs or letters patent, as in the creation of peers and baronets; or by corporeal investiture, as in the creation of a simple knight.
From the same principle also arises the prerogative of erecting and disposing of offices; for honours and offices are in their nature convertible and synonymous. All offices under the crown carry in the eye of the law an honour along with them; because they imply a superiority of parts and abilities, being supposed to be always filled with those that are most able to execute them. And, on the other hand, all honours in their original had duties or offices annexed to them: an earl, comes, was the conservator or governor of a county; and a knight, miles, was bound to attend the king in his wars. For the same reason therefore that honours are in the disposal of the king, offices ought to be so likewise; and as the king may create new titles, so may he create new offices; but with this restriction, that he cannot create new offices with new fees annexed to them, nor annex new fees to old offices; for this would be a tax upon the subject, which cannot be imposed but by act of parliament. Wherefore, in 13 Hen. IV. a
new office being created by the king's letters patent for measuring cloths, with a new fee for the same, the letters patent were, on account of the new fee, revoked and declared void in parliament.
Upon the same or a like reason, the king has also the prerogative of conferring privileges upon private persons. Such as granting place or precedence to any of his subjects, as shall seem good to his royal wisdom: or such as converting aliens, or persons born out of the king's dominions, into denizens; whereby some very considerable privileges of natural-born subjects are conferred upon them. Such also is the prerogative of erecting corporations; whereby a number of private persons are united and knit together, and enjoy many liberties, powers, and immunities, in their political capacity, which they were utterly incapable of in their natural.