in the general acceptation of the word, is a person who has a supreme authority, with the power of levying taxes, making laws, and enforcing an obedience to them: but in Britain, which is a limited monarchy. monarchy, the power of the king is greatly restrained; which is so far from diminishing his honour, that it adds a glory to his crown; for while other kings are absolute monarchs over innumerable multitudes of slaves, the king of England has the distinguished glory of governing a free people, the least of whom is protected by the laws: he has great prerogatives, and a boundless power in doing good; and is at the same time only restrained from acting inconsistently with his own happiness, and that of his people. He has all the ensigns of royalty, and all the marks of sovereignty; but while he has the power of making treaties, of sending and receiving ambassadors, of conferring titles of honour, creating privy counsellors, officers of state, and judges, and may raise men and arms both for sea and land, he cannot force his subjects to maintain them, or raise one tax by his sole authority: he has the privilege of coining money, but he cannot force the meanest subject to part with his property: he can pardon a criminal; but he cannot put a subject to death, till he is condemned by his peers: he may at his pleasure call, continue, prorogue, and dissolve parliaments, and without his royal assent no bill in parliament can pass into a law; yet he can neither act contrary to law, nor make new laws by his sole authority; on the contrary, he may even be sued and cast in his own courts.
At his coronation, he takes an oath to govern his people according to the statutes agreed on in parliament, to cause law and justice in mercy to be executed in all his judgments; to maintain, as much as in him lies, the laws of God, the true profession of the gospel, and the protestant reformed religion by law established. But tho' he may mitigate the rigour of the law, and forgive offenders, he cannot pardon murder, where an appeal is brought by the subject; nor any other crime, when the offender is impeached by the house of commons. He may lay an embargo on shipping; but then it ought to be for the public good, and not for the private advantage of any particular traders. Writs, processes, commissions, &c. are in his name; and he has a power not only to make courts, but to create universities, colleges, and boroughs; to incorporate a city or town, and to grant franchises to such corporations; but they must not, under colour thereof, set up a monopoly. He is esteemed the head of the church in that part of his dominions called England. But notwithstanding these and other prerogatives, the king can take what he has a right to only by due course of law. In short, he has a principal share in the legislative power, and the whole executive power is lodged in him; he is supposed present in all his courts, he can do no wrong, and, according to the laws of England, he never dies.
KING'S BENCH, a court in which the king was formerly accustomed to sit in person, and on that account was moved with the king's household. This was originally the only court in Westminster-hall, and from this it is thought that the courts of common pleas and exchequer were derived. As the king in person is still presumed in law to sit in this court, though only represented by his judges, it is said to have supreme authority; and the proceedings in it are supposed to be coram nobis, that is, before the king. This court consists of a lord chief justice and three other justices or judges, who are invested with a sovereign jurisdiction over all matters, whether of a criminal or public nature. All crimes against the public good, though they do not injure any particular person, are under the cognizance of this court; and no private subject can suffer any unlawful violence or injury against his person, liberty, or possessions, but a proper remedy is afforded him here; not only for satisfaction of damages sustained, but for the punishment of the offender: and wherever this court meets with an offence contrary to the first principles of justice, it may punish it. It frequently proceeds on indictments found before other courts, and removed by certiorari into this. Persons illegally committed to prison, though by the king and council, or either of the houses of parliament, may be bailed in it; and in some cases, even upon legal commitments. Writs of mandamus are issued by this court, for the restoring of officers in corporations, &c. unjustly turned out, and freemen wrongfully disfranchised.
The court of king's bench is now divided into a crown-side and plea-side, the one determining criminal, and the other civil causes: in the first it determines criminal matters of all kinds, where the king is plaintiff; such as treasons, felonies, murders, rapes, robberies, riots, breaches of the peace, and all other causes that are prosecuted by indictment, information, &c. On the plea side, it determines all personal actions commenced by bill or writ; as actions of debt, upon the case, detinue, trover, ejectment, treffas, waite, &c. against any person in the custody of the marshal of the court, as every person sued here is supposed to be by law.
The officers of this court on the crown-side are the clerk and secondary of the crown; and on the side of the pleas there are two chief clerks or prothonotaries, and their secondary and deputy, the custos brevium, two clerks of the papers, the clerk of the declarations, the signer and sealer of bills, the clerk of the rules, clerk of the errors, and clerk of the bail; to which may be added the filazers, the marshal of the court, and the crier.
Books of Kings, two canonical books of the Old Testament, so called because they contain the history of the kings of Israel and Judah, from the beginning of the reign of Solomon, down to the Babylonish captivity, for the space of near six hundred years.
It is probable that these books were composed by Ezra, who extracted them out of the public records, which were kept of what passed in that nation.
King's County, a county of Ireland, in the province of Leinster, bounded by Westmeath on the north, by the county of Kildare on the east, by Queen's county and Tipperary on the south, and by the river Shannon, which separates it from Galway, on the west.
King's Evil. See Medicine.
King's Fisher, in ornithology. See Alcedo.