DEMISE, an Anglo-French legal term for a transfer of an estate, especially by lease (see LANDLORD AND TENANT). The phrase "demise of the Crown" is used in English law to signify the immediate transfer of the sovereignty, with all its attributes and prerogatives, to the successor without any interregnum in accordance with the maxim "the king never dies." At common law the death of the sovereign eo facto dissolved parliament, but this was abolished by the Representation of the People Act, 1867, s. 51. Similarly the common law doctrine that all offices held under the Crown determined at its demise has been nega tived by the Demise of the Crown Act, 1901.