CHAP. 2, Parliamentary Supremacy 33
There was a lack of any clear distinction between the Statutes of (l) Ordin-
Parliament and the Ordinances of the King in Council long after ancesand
the establishment of the Model Parliament at the end of the thirteenth tion°s "
century. (The Lex Regia or Statute of Proclamations, 1539, gave the
King wide buf not exclusive powers of legislating without reference
to Parliament by proclamation which had replaced the ordinance as
a form of legislation.) This statute did not give to the King and
Council power to do anything that they pleased by royal ordinance,
but was a genuine attempt by the King and Parliament to deal finally
with the obscure position of the authority possessed by groclgjgatipns.
It safeguarded the common law, existing Acts of Parliament and
rights of property, and prohibited the infliction of the death penalty
for a breach of a proclamation.1 Despite the repeal of this statute in
1547J^oth Mary and Elizabeth continued to resort to proclamations
as a means of governing. The judicial powers of the Council, and in
particular of the Court of Star Chamber, were available to enforce
proclamations.; Thei, scope of the royal prerogative was largely un-
defined,( It is a most difficult task for the constitutional historian to
say at any given period prior to 1689 exactly what must be enacted
by Parliament alone and what could be achieved by prerogative
ordinance.! Nor is this surprising when it is remembered that legis-
lative power originally lay with the King in Council, and that the
influence of the Council varied with the ability of the monarch to
choose his counsellors. James I. made full use of this power, with the
result that in 1611 Coke was consulted by the Council, along with
three of his brother judges who were added at his request, for an
expression of opinion on the legality of proclamations. The result
t>f their considerations is to be found in the Case oŁ Proclamations
^(1611), 12 Co. Rep. 74; K. & L. 78, and may be regarded as final.
"1. The King by his proclamation cannot create any offence
which was not one before; for then he might alter the law of the land
in a high point; for if he may create an offence where pone is, upon
that ensues fine and imprisonment.
i4Z The King hath no prerogative but what the law of the land
allows Mm*
"3. But the King for the prevention of offences may by proclama-
tion admonish his subjects that they keep the laws and do not offend
them upon punishment to be inflicted by law; the neglect of such
proclamation aggravates the offence.
"4. If an offence be not punishable in the Star Chamber, the pro-
hibition of it by proclamation cannot make it so."
A definite limit is thus put upon the exercise of the prerogative, the •
full force of which was only effective when the Court of Star Chamber
and other conciliar tribunals were abolished in 1640. But the existing
1 H.E.L., Vol. IV., pp. 102-3/