From this general view of the English constitution, as it stood about the time of Henry VI., we must turn our eyes to the political revolutions which clouded the latter years of his reign. The minority of this prince, notwithstanding the vices and dissensions of his court and the inglorious discomfiture of our arms in France, was not perhaps a calamitous period. The country grew more wealthy; the law was, on the whole, better observed; the power of parliament more complete and effectual than in preceding times. But Henry's weakness of understanding, becoming evident as he reached manhood, rendered his reign a perpetual minority. His marriage with a princess of strong mind, but ambitious and vindictive, rather tended to weaken the government and to accelerate his downfall; a certain reverence that had been paid to the gentleness of the king's disposition being overcome by her unpopularity. By degrees Henry's natural feebleness degenerated almost into fatuity; and this unhappy condition seems to have overtaken him nearly about the time when it became an arduous task to withstand the assault in preparation against his government. This may properly introduce a great constitutional subject, to which some peculiar circumstances of our own age have imperiously directed the consideration of parliament. Though the proceedings of 1788 and 1810 are undoubtedly precedents of far more authority than any that can be derived from our ancient history, yet, as the seal of the legislature has not yet been set upon this controversy, it is not perhaps altogether beyond the possibility of future discussion; and at least it cannot be uninteresting to look back on those parallel or analogous cases by which the deliberations of parliament upon the question of regency were guided.
[Sidenote: Historical instances of regencies:]
[Sidenote: during the absence of our kings in France;]
While the kings of England retained their continental dominions, and were engaged in the wars to which those gave birth, they were of course frequently absent from this country. Upon such occasions the administration seems at first to have devolved officially on the justiciary, as chief servant of the crown. But Henry III. began the practice of appointing lieutenants, or guardians of the realm (custodes regni), as they were more usually termed, by way of temporary substitutes. They were usually nominated by the king without consent of parliament; and their office carried with it the right of exercising all the prerogatives of the crown. It was of course determined by the king's return; and a distinct statute was necessary in the reign of Henry V. to provide that a parliament called by the guardian of the realm during the king's absence should not be dissolved by that event.[427] The most remarkable circumstance attending those lieutenancies was that they were sometimes conferred on the heir apparent during his infancy. The Black Prince, then duke of Cornwall, was left guardian of the realm in 1339, when he was but ten years old;[428] and Richard his son, when still younger, in 1372, during Edward III.'s last expedition into France.[429]