Royal prerogative in the context of "British Crown"

The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms, analogous to the concept of the state in legal systems influenced by Roman civil law.

English common law never developed a concept of the state and left supreme executive power with the king. The concept of the Crown as a corporation sole developed in the Kingdom of England as a separation of the physical crown and property of the kingdom from the person and personal property of the monarch. It spread through English and later British colonisation, becoming embedded in the legal lexicon of the British dominions. As the dominions gained control over the royal prerogative in the 1930s, the concept evolved such that 'the Crown in right of' each realm and territory acts independently of the other realms and territories.

Ferdinand II (9 July 1578 – 15 February 1637) was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia, Hungary, and Croatia from 1619 until his death in 1637. He was the son of Archduke Charles II of Inner Austria and Maria of Bavaria, who were devout Catholics. In 1590, when Ferdinand was 11 years old, they sent him to study at the Jesuits' college in Ingolstadt because they wanted to isolate him from the Lutheran nobles. A few months later, his father died, and he inherited Inner Austria–Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and smaller provinces. His cousin, Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, who was the head of the Habsburg family, appointed regents to administer these lands.

Ferdinand was installed as the actual ruler of the Inner Austrian provinces in 1596 and 1597. Rudolf II also charged him with the command of the defense of Croatia, Slavonia, and southeastern Hungary against the Ottoman Empire. Ferdinand regarded the regulation of religious issues as a royal prerogative and introduced strict Counter-Reformation measures from 1598. First, he ordered the expulsion of all Protestant pastors and teachers; next, he established special commissions to restore the Catholic parishes. The Ottomans captured Nagykanizsa in Hungary in 1600, which enabled them to invade Styria. A year later, Ferdinand tried to recapture the fortress, but the action ended in November 1601 with a defeat, due to unprofessional command of his troops. During the first stage of the family feud known as the Brothers' Quarrel, Ferdinand initially supported Rudolph II's brother, Matthias, who wanted to convince the melancholic emperor to abdicate, but Matthias' concessions to the Protestants in Hungary, Austria, and Bohemia outraged Ferdinand. He planned an alliance to strengthen the position of the Catholic Church in the Holy Roman Empire, but the Catholic princes established the Catholic League without his participation in 1610.

The royal prerogative is a body of customary authority, privilege, and immunity attached to the British monarch (or "sovereign"), recognised in the United Kingdom. The monarch is regarded internally as the absolute authority, or "sole prerogative", and the source of many of the executive powers of the British government.

Prerogative powers were formerly exercised by the monarch acting on their own initiative. Since the 19th century, by convention, the advice of the prime minister or the cabinet—who are then accountable to Parliament for the decision—has been required in order for the prerogative to be exercised. The monarch remains constitutionally empowered to exercise the royal prerogative against the advice of the prime minister or the cabinet, but in practice would likely only do so in emergencies or where existing precedent does not adequately apply to the circumstances in question.

A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, but since the 14th century have only been used in place of private acts to grant a right or power to an individual or a body corporate. They were, and are still, used to establish significant organisations such as boroughs (with municipal charters), universities and learned societies, and were historically used to establish companies.

Charters should be distinguished from royal warrants of appointment, grants of arms, and other forms of letters patent, such as those granting an organisation the right to use the word "royal" in their name or granting city status, which do not have legislative effect. The British monarchy has issued over 1,000 royal charters. Of these about 750 remain in effect.

Ship money was a tax of medieval origin levied intermittently in the Kingdom of England until the middle of the 17th century. Assessed typically on the inhabitants of coastal areas of England, it was one of several taxes that English monarchs could levy by prerogative without the approval of Parliament. Queen Elizabeth I levied this tax to pay for a navy. The attempt of King Charles I from 1634 onwards to levy ship money during peacetime and extend it to the inland counties of England without parliamentary approval provoked fierce resistance, and was one of the grievances of the English propertied class in the lead-up to the English Civil War.

Denization is an obsolete or defunct process in England and Ireland and the later Kingdom of Great Britain, the United Kingdom, and the British Empire, dating back to the 13th century, by which an alien (foreigner), through letters patent, became a denizen, thereby obtaining certain rights otherwise normally enjoyed only by the King's (or Queen's) subjects, including the right to hold land. The denizen was neither a subject (with citizenship or nationality) nor an alien, but had a status akin to permanent residency today. While one could become a subject via naturalisation, this required a private act of Parliament (or latterly of a colonial legislature); in contrast, denization was cheaper, quicker, and simpler. Denization fell into obsolescence when the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act 1914 (4 & 5 Geo. 5. c. 17) simplified the naturalisation process.

Denization occurred by a grant of letters patent, an exercise of the royal prerogative. Denizens paid a fee and took an oath of allegiance to the crown. For example, when Venetian mariner Gabriel Corbet was granted letters of denization in 1431 for service upon the seas to Henry V and Henry VI, he was required to pay 40 shillings into the hanaper for the privilege.

The Privy Council of England, also known as His (or Her) Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council (Latin: concilium familiare, concilium privatum et assiduum), was a body of advisers to the sovereign of the Kingdom of England. Its members were often senior members of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, together with leading churchmen, judges, diplomats and military leaders.

The Privy Council of England was a powerful institution, advising the sovereign on the exercise of the royal prerogative and on the granting of royal charters. It issued executive orders known as Orders in Council and also had judicial functions.

The prime minister of Spain, officially the president of the Government (Spanish: Presidente del Gobierno), is the head of government of Spain. The prime minister nominates the ministers and chairs the Council of Ministers. In this sense, the prime minister establishes the Government policies and coordinates the actions of the Cabinet members. As chief executive, the prime minister also advises the monarch on the exercise of their royal prerogatives.

Although it is not possible to determine when the position actually originated, the office of prime minister evolved throughout history to what it is today. The role of prime minister (then called Secretary of State) as president of the Council of Ministers, first appears in a royal decree of 1824 by King Ferdinand VII. The current office was established during the reign of Juan Carlos I, in the 1978 Constitution, which describes the prime minister's constitutional role and powers, how the prime minister accedes to, and is removed from office, and the relationship between the prime minister and Parliament.

Richard II (6 January 1367 – c. 14 February 1400), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward, Prince of Wales (later known as the Black Prince), and Joan, Countess of Kent. Richard's father died in 1376, leaving Richard as heir apparent to his grandfather, King Edward III; upon the latter's death, the 10-year-old Richard succeeded to the throne.

During Richard's first years as king, government was in the hands of a series of regency councils, influenced by Richard's uncles John of Gaunt and Thomas of Woodstock. England at that time faced various problems, most notably the Hundred Years' War. A major challenge of the reign was the Peasants' Revolt in 1381, and the young king played a central part in the brutal suppression of this crisis. Less warlike than either his father or grandfather, he sought to bring an end to the Hundred Years' War. A firm believer in the royal prerogative, Richard restrained the power of the aristocracy and relied on a private retinue for military protection instead. In contrast to his grandfather, Richard cultivated a refined atmosphere centred on art and culture at court, in which the king was an elevated figure.