cxxiv.
(life of Lord Chancellor King).] [Footnote 26: In fact, however, the age at which a young prince was considered competent to exercise the royal authority in person had been fixed at eighteen; and it is so stated in the speech in which the King, in 1765, recommended the appointment of a Regent to Parliament .-- _Parliamentary History_, xvi., 52.] [Footnote 27: This idea was expanded into an epigram, which appeared in most of the daily papers, and has been thought worthy of being preserved in the "Parliamentary History," xvii., 401 (note): "Quoth Dick to Tom, 'This act appears Absurd, as I'm alive, To take the crown at eighteen years, A wife at twenty-five.
The mystery how shall we explain?
For sure, as Dowdeswell said, Thus early if they're fit to _reign_, They must be fit to _wed_.' Quoth Tom to Dick, 'Thou art a fool, And nothing know'st of life; Alas! it's easier far to rule A kingdom than a wife.'"] [Footnote 28: It is remarkable that this clause on one occasion proved an obstacle to the punishment of the abettors of such a marriage.

In 1793 the Duke of Sussex married Lady Augusta Murray, first at Rome, and afterward, by banns, at St.George's, Hanover Square.

And when the affair came to be investigated by the Privy Council, Lord Thurlow denounced the conduct of the pair in violent terms, and angrily asked the Attorney-general, Sir John Scott, why he had not prosecuted all the parties concerned in this abominable marriage.

Sir John's reply, as he reported it himself, was sufficiently conclusive: "I answered that it was a very difficult business to prosecute; that the act, it was understood, had been drawn by Lord Mansfield, the Attorney-general Thurlow, and the Solicitor-general Wedderburn, who, unluckily, had made all persons present at the marriage guilty of felony.

And as nobody could prove the marriage except a person who had been present at it, there could be no prosecution, because nobody present could be compelled to be a witness."-- THORP'S _Life of Eldon_, i., 235.] [Footnote 29: A protest against the bill, entered by fourteen peers, including one bishop (of Bangor), denounced it, among other objections, as "contrary to the original inherent rights of human nature ...
exceeding the power permitted by Divine Providence to human legislation ...