Definition
Super prerogativa regis (Latin: "concerning the prerogative of the king") was a writ in English law that lay against the widow of a tenant-in-chief of the Crown when she married without obtaining the royal license to do so. Because the widow of a king's tenant held land that had been held directly of the Crown, the king retained a prerogative interest in her remarriage — particularly because a new husband would acquire rights over that land and might owe military or feudal service. The writ was the Crown's procedural mechanism for enforcing that prerogative and, by extension, for extracting the fine or penalty that attached to an unlicensed remarriage.
The writ takes its name from the ancient English statute Prerogativa Regis, a document of uncertain date (traditionally assigned to the reign of Edward I, circa 1322) that codified a range of Crown prerogatives over tenants-in-chief, including control over the marriages of their widows and heirs.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in the context of historical English feudal and prerogative law. Researchers encountering it in legal records, Year Books, or early treatises should treat it as a window into the feudal incidents attached to tenure-in-chief — a cluster of Crown rights that included wardship, marriage, relief, and primer seisin. These incidents were progressively dismantled: the Tenures Abolition Act 1660 eliminated most of the feudal incidents of knight service, and the writ itself had become obsolete well before that point.
The practical trap for researchers is scope-creep: do not read this writ as a general instrument of royal matrimonial control. It was narrow in operation, applying only to widows of tenants-in-chief (those holding directly of the Crown), not to widows of mesne lords or ordinary freeholders. The royal prerogative over remarriage did not extend down the tenurial chain.
A secondary research trap involves the source document itself. The statute Prerogativa Regis is referenced in older authorities as if its date and authority were settled, but its precise legal status and dating remained contested among legal historians. Coke's reading of it in his Second Institute differs in emphasis from later scholarship. When a source cites "the statute of Prerogativa Regis" without further precision, treat the reference with care.
Researchers working in the Law Mind corpus who encounter this writ in connection with wardship records, the Court of Wards and Liveries (operating 1540–1646), or Chancery proceedings involving feudal incidents will find it most at home. The Court of Wards specifically administered Crown rights arising from tenure-in-chief, and the underlying prerogative this writ enforced was core to that court's jurisdiction.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's entry is characteristically brief: "A writ which formerly lay against the king's tenant's widow for marrying without the royal license." The sole citation is to Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium at folio 174, which is the natural primary source for writs of this kind — Fitzherbert's compilation of writs remains an authoritative guide to the forms of action available in English common law. The word "formerly" signals that Bouvier treats the writ as entirely obsolete by his era (mid-nineteenth century), which is accurate.
Older dictionaries in the common law tradition (Rastell, Termes de la Ley, Cunningham) similarly treat the writ as a historical artifact by the time of their composition. None of the standard historical dictionaries offer substantive doctrinal analysis beyond identifying the writ's target and occasion. Fitzherbert remains the most direct source for understanding the writ's technical requirements; Coke's treatment of the underlying statute in the Second Institute provides the constitutional and prerogative framework that gave the writ its authority.
What historical sources consistently omit is any discussion of how frequently the writ was actually deployed, or how the underlying prerogative interacted with the widow's own legal capacity to contract marriage. These questions are better addressed through record scholarship and the historiography of the Court of Wards than through the dictionary tradition.
Jurisdictional Note
Super prerogativa regis is exclusively a historical English common law writ. It has no analogue in American law, Scots law, or any post-colonial legal system. Researchers working in jurisdictions outside England will encounter this term only in comparative or historical contexts.