202 Revenue. [Ch.XI.Sec.I. liamentary appointments have increased (a). It is a most im- portant principle of law that the King has no prerogative power of taxing his people : that can only be affected by Act of Parliament. SECT. I. I. The first four of the King's ordinary revenues, viz. the custody of the temporalities of bishops, corodies, tithes of extra parochial places and Jirst Jruits and tenths (the last of which no longer exist as a Crown revenue), are of an ecclesias- tical nature, and have been already considered. II. In considering the ordinary and inherent resources aris- ing from immediate Crown possessions, and rights peculiar to the Crown, we may mention, 1. The profits accruing from the demesne lands of the Crown. The demesne lands, terrce domiiiicales regisy of the Anglo Saxon monarchs were very great : a circumstance not difficult to be accounted for. The kingdoms of the Heptarchy were founded by chieftains, who commanded troops attached to them by the ties of consanguinity, who were born with an hereditary regard for the family they represented, or were led to join in the incursion, from the high idea they entertained of their courage, character and ggod conduct. In other words, they were the heads of clans or little tribes, such as now exist among the Tartars, and some vestiges of which still remain in the mountains of Scotland. Such commanders, it is probable, would claim a considerable share of the territory that was conquered; and as, besides the plausibility of their original pretensions, it was discovered, in the course of the war, that many advantages resulted from subordination on the one hand, and pre-eminence on the other, it was natural to suppose, that a considerable portion of the new acquisition would be given to the leader, not only to preserve so useful a pre-eminence, (a) 1 Bla. Com. 332. 7 but A
