=Source.=--_State Trials._ Vol. ii., p. 482.
For the first, it will be admitted for a rule and ground of state,
that in every commonwealth and government there be some rights of
sovereignty, _jura majestatis_, which regularly and of common right
do belong to the sovereign power of that state; unless custom, or the
provisional ordinance of that state, do otherwise dispose of them:
which sovereign power is _potestas suprema_ a power that can control
all other powers, and cannot be controlled but of itself. It will
not be denied, that the power of imposing hath so great a trust in
it, by reason of the mischiefs may grow to the common-wealth by the
abuses of it, that it hath ever been ranked among those rights of
sovereign power. Then is there no further question to be made, but
to examine where the sovereign power is in this kingdom; for there
is the right of imposition. The sovereign power is agreed to be in
the king: but in the king is a twofold power; the one is parliament,
as he is assisted with the consent of the whole state; the other out
of parliament, as he is sole, and singular, guided merely by his own
will. And if of these two powers in the king one is greater than
the other, and can direct and control the other; that is _suprema
potestas_, the sovereign power, and the other is _subordinata_. It
will then be easily proved, that the power of the king in parliament
is greater than his power out of parliament; and doth rule and
control it; for if the king make a grant by his letters patents out
of parliament, it bindeth him and his successors: he cannot revoke
it, nor any of his successors; but by his power in parliament he may
defeat and avoid it; and therefore that is the greater power.