The Crown

This article is about the concept of the state in some nations. For the television series, see The Crown (TV series). For other uses, see Crown (disambiguation).

The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms, analogous to the concept of the state in legal systems influenced by Roman civil law.

English common law never developed a concept of the state and left supreme executive power with the monarch. The concept of the Crown as a corporation sole developed in the Kingdom of England as a separation of the physical crown and property of the kingdom from the person and personal property of the monarch. It spread through English and later British colonisation, becoming embedded in the legal lexicon of the British dominions. As the dominions gained control over the royal prerogative in the 1930s, the concept evolved such that 'the Crown in right of' each realm and territory acts independently of the other realms and territories.

Depending on the context, it may refer to the entirety of the state, the executive government specifically (either of a realm or one of its provinces, states or territories) or only to the monarch and their direct representatives. The Crown as a political concept should not be confused with physical crowns, such as those of the British regalia.

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