in Law. Franchise and liberty are used as synonymous terms; and their definition is, "a royal privilege, or branch of the king's prerogative, subsisting in the hands of a subject." Being therefore derived from the crown, they must arise from the king's grant; or in some cases may be held by prescription, which, as has been frequently said, presupposes a grant. The kinds of them are various, and almost infinite. We shall here briefly touch upon some of the principal, premising only, that they may be vested in either natural persons or bodies politic; in one man, or in many: but the same identical franchise, that has before been granted to one, cannot be bestowed on another, for that would prejudice the former grant.

To be a county palatine, is a franchise vested in a number of persons. It is likewise a franchise for a number of persons to be incorporated and subsist as a body politic; with a power to maintain perpetual succession, and do other corporate acts: and each individual member of such corporation is also said to have a franchise or freedom. Other franchises are, to hold a court leet; to have a manor or lordship; or, at least, to have a lordship paramount: to have waifs, wrecks, estrays, treasure-trove, royal fish, forfeitures, and deodands: to have a court of one's own, or liberty of holding pleas and trying causes: to have the cognizance of pleas; which is still a greater liberty, being an exclusive right, so that no other court shall try causes arising within that jurisdiction: to have a bailiwick, or liberty exempt from the sheriff of the county; wherein the grantee only, and his officers, are to execute all process: to have a fair or market; with the right of taking toll, either there or at any other public places, as at bridges, wharfs, or the like; which tolls must have a reasonable cause of commencement (as in consideration of repairs, or the like), else the franchise is illegal and void: or lastly, to have a Franchi forest, chace, park, warren, or fishery, endowed with privileges of royalty. See CHASE, FOREST, &c.

FRANCHISE is also used for an asylum or sanctuary, where people are secure of their persons, &c. Churches and monasteries in Spain are franchises for criminals; so were they anciently in England, till they were abated to such a degree that there was a necessity for abolishing the custom. One of the most remarkable capitulars made by Charlemagne in his palace of Herilal, in 779, was that relating to the franchises of churches. The right of franchise was held so sacred, that even the less religious kings observed it to a degree of scrupulousness; but to such excess in time was it carried, that Charlemagne resolved to reduce it. Accordingly he forbade any provision being carried to criminals retired into churches for refuge.

FRANCHISE of Quarters, is a certain space or district at Rome, wherein are the houses of the ambassadors of the princes of Europe; and where such as retire cannot be arrested or seized by the birri or serjeants, nor prosecuted at law. The people of Rome look on this as an old usurpation and a scandalous privilege, which ambassadors, out of a jealousy of their power, carried to a great length in the 15th century, by enlarging insensibly the dependencies of their palaces or houses, within which the right of franchise was anciently confined. Several of the popes, Julius III. Pius XIV. Gregory XIII. and Sixtus V. published bulls and ordinances against this abuse; which had reduced so considerable a part of the city from their authority, and rendered it a retreat for the most abandoned persons. At length Innocent XI. expressly refused to receive any more ambassadors but such as would make a formal renunciation of the franchise of quarters.