The Demise of the Crown Act 1702Demise of the Crown Act 1702, 1 Ann. c. 2. (This is the citation in The Statutes of the Realm.) is an act of the Parliament of England. It abolished the rule that all legal proceedings automatically ended upon the death of the monarch.
, two sections of the act remain in force in England and Wales: section IV, which preserves actions for debt and contract, and proceedings on indictment, for future demises, and section VI, which extended the act to Ireland.
Common law position Under medieval English common law, the authority of the royal courts was derived from the monarch personally. As a result, on the death of the monarch, writs and proceedings in the royal courts ceased. Litigants had to begin their proceedings anew, causing delays and additional expenses, such as the cost of reissuing court writs.William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1st ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1765–1769; facsimile edition Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), Book the First, p. 181; Book the Third, p. 296.Halsbury's Laws of England (London: Butterworths, 1998, 4th ed. reissue), vol. 12(1), para. 15.Thomson Irvine, "Demise of the Crown: An Historical Review of the Law in Canada" (2019), 12 Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law 695, at p. 697.
This concept was termed the "demise of the Crown". "Demise" was not referring to the death of the previous monarch, but rather was used in the property law sense, of a transfer of property. Upon the death of the previous monarch, the Crown and all its powers and prerogatives were transferred to the succeeding monarch.Irvine, "Demise of the Crown", pp. 697–698.Halsbury's Laws of England, vol. 8(2), para. 40, n.1.
Blackstone explains this point:
Tudor reform The effect of the demise of the Crown caused considerable inconvenience for litigants. In 1547, the first year of the reign of King Edward VI, the English Parliament passed the first statute to relieve some of the inconveniences: An Acte for the contynuance of Actions after the deathe of anny King of this Realme.An Acte for the contynuance of Actions after the deathe of anny King of this Realme, 1 Edw. 6, c. 7. This statute provided that pending court actions would not be affected by the death of King Edward or his successors. Actions could continue under the name of a successor monarch.Irvine, "Demise of the Crown", pp. 705–706.
The act The Tudor legislation mainly continued actions begun by writs issued under the name of King Henry VIII. Upon the death of King William III, Parliament enacted the Demise of the Crown Act 1702, which was more comprehensive.Irvine, "Demise of the Crown", p. 706. It continued the commissions of the various courts and justices issued during William's reign, which were to continue to operate as if the commissions had been issued in the name of Queen Anne.Demise of the Crown Act 1702, ss. III, V. Future commissions were to last for six months after the death of a monarch, unless cancelled sooner by the new monarch.Demise of the Crown Act 1702, s. V. The courts were to continue to operate under Queen Anne or any successor, without interruption. Claims brought by the Crown prior to Williams death to recover property or in debt were continued, as were proceedings on indictments.Demise of the Crown Act 1702, s. III. The same principle applied to property and debt claims, and proceedings on indictments, brought during the reign of Anne or a successor.Demise of the Crown Act 1702, s. IV. The demise did not affect any jurisdictional issues in the courts.
Subsequent developments Section 5 of the act, so far as unrepealed, was repealed by section 8(2) of, and part I of schedule 5 to, the Justices of the Peace Act 1968, which came into force on 25 October 1968.
See also Demise of the Crown Demise of the Crown Act 1727 Demise of the Crown Act 1901 Halsbury's Statutes
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