MAJESTY

This title of honour is derived from the Romans, among whom it stood for the collective power and dignity of the sovereign body; as majestas populi Romani. Hence treason was termed crimen laesae majestatis, an injury offered to majesty. Majesty was the attribute of consuls, praetors, . only as representing the public; and hence, in later times, when it was transferred to the emperors along with the sovereign power, inferior magistrates were entitled, in ceremonial language, by the appellation of dignitas. Majesty is now the conventional title of European emperors and kingj. (The Sultan of Turkey has no more elevated title in our ceremonial than Highne .) It appears to have been first a umed by the German emperors, who were considered as representing the imperial dignity of Rome; then by the French king, Henry II.: in England, by Elizabeth. The Emperor of Austria has the title Majesty, with the prefix K. K.(Kaiserliche, Kdnigliche; i.e. Imperial, Royal.) Apostolical Majesty A title bestowed on Stephen, duke of Hungary, about a.d. 1000, by Pope Sylvester II. Re-conferred on the empre -queen Maria The res a in 1758. Catholic Majesty. — K title bestowed on Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain by Pope Alexander VI. in 1491, in memory of the conquest of the Moors: it had, however, been borne by earlier Spanish monarchs. Most Christian Majesty. — A title borne by the kings of France; first solemnly conferred on Louis XI. in 1469 by Pope Paul II. Most Faithful Majesty. — The title of the kings of Portugal; bestowed by Benedict XIV. on John V. [s. 711]