§ 1. In all these forms shines forth human majesty, but one of divine origin and nearest to God. For it—as they are accustomed to speak—is either real or personal. The former endures together with the kingdom, even when there is an interregnum; the latter, attached to persons, shines forth now in one, now in several, whether in a king, the best men, or the people. But wherever government exists, there is care for another’s safety. Oppian, book 5 of the Halieutica, names kings “ὀλύμπια τείχεα γαίης,” “the heavenly walls of the earth.” See Augustine, The City of God, book 19, chapter 15. For government undertakes that all are to be defended, whether its reign extends widely or its city bounds are narrow. Alexander used to say that the world was one city and that his camp was its citadel.
By real majesty the kingdom is constituted, and its fundamental laws are confirmed by common consent. Personal majesty is the power of governing and disposing all things. Hence there is something admirable and beyond nature when all obey one or a few, as Tolosanus and Lipsius rightly teach. Thus also Fasti 5:
“Hence Majesty was born, who tempers the whole world,
and on the day she was brought forth, she was great.”
Hence the crime of injured majesty is the gravest among all, because it is against the greatest thing and against all.
§ 2. The rights of majesty are: to give laws, not receive them; to dispense contrary to the laws; to defend the fatherland; to administer the highest affairs; to judge all and be judged by no one. Majesty is the right or power itself from which all these so great effects flow.
The regalia are the effects of majesty, or rights consequent upon majesty, among which many number being released from the laws, as Bocer, book 1 On Regalia, §2, and Arnisaeus, book 2 On the Right of Majesty, number 1. They all arise from the supreme power of commanding, which contains both lawgiving and judging.
§ 3. They distinguish the regalia into greater and lesser. They call the former rights of dignity and the latter rights of utility or of the fisc. Not rightly; for those of the fisc contain all the defenses and sinews of power. Without them majesty is either nothing or precarious. Thus they are not lesser but great, often greater than those which are called rights of dignity.
Joachim Stephani, book 3 On Jurisdiction, chapter 8, §2, says that the regalia consist in “αὐτεξουσίᾳ & δεσποτείᾳ.” This is confusedly said and not truly. For we do not acknowledge “δεσποτείαν” in a moderate government. If we speak properly, it is the name of a private person; if broadly, it is power itself. Next, “αὐτεξουσία” is each person’s free judgment, which is supreme in the supreme prince—but “νόμιμον,” or lawful; otherwise it is unjust.
But I would not wish that name to be abused in this matter, lest the will of the prince be judged justice. Those things assist royal dogs—parasites who are destroyers of kingdoms—excessively.
§ 4. The regalia which are customarily given to lesser princes in a kingdom are called so improperly, for they are “ἀπόρρωγες,” or offshoots, and communications of rights similar to supreme right. The highest right of princes under a king in Germany is to promulgate edicts and establish laws. Therefore what Fachinaeus, Bocer, Camman, and others refer among the things reserved to supreme majesty is false.
It belongs to the same authority to establish new laws and to approve or repeal old ones. Bodin, book 1 of the Politics, number 94. But, as I said, not only an evident advantage but a certain necessity ought to exist for departing from that which has long seemed equitable. Law 2, On the Constitutions of Princes. Every most factious person learns to dispute all laws when he sees that what was long held sacred is repudiated.