Definition
Jus corone (Latin: "right of the crown") is a term of English constitutional law denoting the right of succession to the throne — that is, the legal title by which a sovereign or heir claims the Crown of England. It describes not merely the powers attendant upon kingship but the hereditary or legally determined entitlement to assume the royal office itself. The phrase is occasionally rendered as the right "to the crown" rather than simply "of the crown," a distinction that matters: it points to succession and inheritance as the operative legal concept, not the general prerogatives exercised once the crown is held.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost entirely confined to historical English constitutional law and appears primarily in treatise literature rather than case reporters. Researchers will encounter it most often when working in three areas:
First, in foundational English constitutional texts. Blackstone's Commentaries (1 Bl. Comm. 191) is the anchor citation in all three source dictionaries, making it the primary point of reference. Stephen's Commentaries on the Laws of England (2 Steph. Comm. 434) is the secondary authority. Any researcher tracing the term should begin there rather than in reported cases.
Second, in materials concerning disputed succession. The concept of jus corone was legally contentious during periods of dynastic conflict — the Wars of the Roses, the Exclusion Crisis of 1679–1681, and the succession debates surrounding the Act of Settlement 1701. In those contexts, the "right to the crown" was not merely ceremonial but a live question of law and legitimacy. Historical sources from those periods may use the term or its equivalents without defining it, assuming familiarity.
Third, in comparative and historical materials on royal prerogative. Because jus corone addresses the threshold question of who holds the crown, it is conceptually distinct from the prerogatives exercised by the crown once held. Researchers conflating these two bodies of doctrine will find themselves in different bodies of authority entirely.
The term has no modern statutory presence and will not appear in contemporary legal databases as an operative legal standard. Corpus searching should be directed to digitized treatise collections, historical parliamentary records, and constitutional history scholarship. Burrill's cross-listing of the adjacent term jus cudendae monetae (the right of coining money) in the same entry is a useful reminder that "jus" compound terms in historical dictionaries are often grouped without explicit cross-references — browsing neighboring entries is advisable when researching any single jus term.
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Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries are in close agreement: jus corone means the right of succession to the throne, with Blackstone and Stephen providing the foundational authority. There is no meaningful divergence among the sources on substance.
The most instructive editorial note comes from Burrill, who takes care to phrase the definition as the right "of the crown, or rather to the crown" — a precision that Black's reproduces. This nuance is not pedantic: the distinction between rights inhering in the crown (prerogative) and the right to claim the crown (succession) separates two distinct fields of English constitutional law. Bouvier's entry is truncated in the available text, suggesting either that the original referred readers to a companion entry or that the corpus version is incomplete; researchers using Bouvier's should verify against a full edition.
None of the source dictionaries address the term's appearance in the context of dynastic conflict or parliamentary debate, which represents a gap for researchers approaching the term from a legal history rather than a definition-seeking perspective. The treatise literature — particularly Blackstone's Book I discussion of the descent of the crown — substantially enriches what the dictionary entries alone provide.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Royal Prerogative | Succession to the Crown | English Constitutional History
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