ABSTRACT
Sir William Blackstone: Commentaries on the Laws of England (8th edn, 1778), Book 1, p 239:
By the word ‘prerogative’, we usually understand that special pre-eminence, which the king hath, over and above all other persons, and out of the ordinary course of the common law, in right of his regal dignity. It signifies, in its etymology (from prae and rogo), something which is required or demanded before, or in preference to, all others. And hence it follows that it must be in its nature singular and eccentrical; that it can only be applied to those rights and capacities which the king enjoys alone, in contradistinction to others, and not to those which he enjoys in common with any of his subjects: for if once any prerogative of the Crown could be held in common with the subject, it would cease to be prerogative any longer.
