This book has provided a large amount of proof and insight into the legal status of dispossessed dynastic Houses and governments-in-exile. This includes the legal, ethical, and moral underpinnings of the law that governs their legal existence.

The life or death of non-territorial sovereignty, the central subject of this book, revolves primarily around the ancient natural law principle of prescription. It remains valid today just as it has been in the past.

Sovereignty is, without question, the highest secular right on earth. Nothing holds authority above it in the physical realm, except for natural law. The royal prerogative is nothing more than a manifestation of the supreme sovereign right and entitlement to rule. It is this supreme fons honorum from which all honors spring.

Therefore, retaining sovereignty is of vital importance to a deposed royal House, which makes prescription of paramount significance to them. Its rules determine who has legitimate rights and who does not. In other words, the right to rule is determined by the dictates of prescription in public international law. Edmund Burke declared:

They [the royal sovereign entitlements] are guarded by the sacred rules of prescription. . . . As long as prescriptive law endures: as long as the great stable laws of property, common to us with all civilized nations, are kept in their integrity, [we are protected]. . . . [1]

"The Law of Nations [which includes the principles of prescription] is the law of sovereigns. . . [and sovereignty]."[2] That is ". . . the [special] law[s] of nature . . . bind all princes," not some, but all, whether reigning or dispossessed impacting both internal and external rights and responsibilities.[3] All rulers are obligated by it. Therefore, the "ultimate boundaries" for a ruler, whether president, governor or king, was his requirement to obey "natural law," which includes prescription -- one of the essential laws of justice and equity -- equally essential to stability, freedom, property and prosperity. In other words, a king or sovereign prince was to be absolute in his reign over the land and his people only because he had to rule ". . . according to a divine plan expressed on earth through natural law."[4] This obedience is what makes for great nations, because free and healthy societies are dependent on just laws that are respected, revered and consistently obeyed.

The foundation of government -- [for subjects or citizens] -- has by many been [found] in what Lawyers term Prescription; that is to say, in long and indeed immemorial usage or possession. There can be no doubt that this gives great weight and authority to every government, and consequently materially strengthens its power. Not only immemorial possession of the supreme power, or the existence of any government so long that no record remains of its beginning, but even long possession, or the existence of any government for a known long period of time, gives great strength and stability to that government, even the date and circumstances of whose beginning are ascertained. Men have a natural tendency to acquiesce in whatever they find established, and the longer the period of the establishment the more ready and cheerful will be their acquiescence.[5] (emphasis added)

Prescription is so profound that it is among the great ". . . causes for which civil society itself had been instituted."[6] This is, as explained by Edmund Burke, because it is a ". . . a principle of natural equity [and justice]. . . ." and a ". . . great fundamental part of natural law. . . ."[7] Prince Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838), the renowned French legal mind of the Congress of Vienna held that ". . . prescription [was] the definitive [conclusive or highest] claim to [legitimate] sovereignty. . . ."[8] In fact, "dynastic sovereignty, resting on prescription, acquired perhaps its final definition at the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815). . . ."[9] The rules of prescription determined who among the deposed of that time continued to hold the right to rule and who did not. It was the legitimizing factor and still is.

For this and many other important reasons, prescription played a central part of this book chiefly as it relates to deposed governments and monarchies, but prescription law has done much more for the good of mankind than most people know. It has:

. . . brought stability and order both to society and to politics. In particular, prescription underpinned the framework of the social order which made both rights and duties possible in a civilized society.[10]

The importance of sovereignty is absolutely precious and vital especially in preserving the freedom of all nations. Freedom and justice must prevail for life to be abundant and fair, and this must include both equity and justice for all true sovereign entities, both regnant and deposed, to maintain their lawful claims and thus be recognized for what they are.

This book has been about some important insights into law, freedom, truth, and justice. Natural law provides the framework for preserving these critically important ideals promoting a civilized, productive and healthy society among men.

[3] Jean Bodin as quoted in Kenneth Pennington, The Prince and the Law, 1200-1600: Sovereignty and Rights in the Western Legal Tradition, 1993, p. 8; Note: ". . . Princes are more strictly bound by divine and natural law than those who are subject to their rule." (Jean Bodin, Six Books of the Republic, note 45, 1961, pp. xxv-xxvi).