MAJESTY, dignity, greatness, a term especially used to ex press the dignity and power of a sovereign. This application is to be traced to the use of maiestas in Latin to express the supreme sovereign dignity of the Roman State, the maiestas republicae or populi Romani, hence maiestatem laedere or minuere, was to com mit high treason, crimen rnaiestatis. (For the modern law and usage of laesa maiestas see TREASON.) From the republic maiestas was transferred to the emperors, and the maiestas populi Romani became the maiestas imperil, and augustalis maiestas is used as a term to express the sovereign person of the emperor. Honorius and Theodosius speak of themselves in the first person as nostra maiestas. The term "majesty" was strictly confined in the middle ages to the successors of the Roman emperors in the West, and at the treaty of Cambrai (1529) it is reserved for the emperor Charles V. Later the word is used of kings also, and the distinc tion is made between imperial majesty (caesareana maiestas) and kingly or royal majesty. From the 16th century dates the applica tion of "Most Christian and Catholic Majesty" to the kings of France, of "Catholic Majesty" to the kings of Spain, of "Most Faithful Majesty" to the kings of Portugal, and "Apostolic Maj.
esty" to the kings of Hungary. In England the use is generally assigned to the reign of Henry VIII., but it is found, though not in general usage, earlier ; thus the New English Dictionary quotes from an Address of the Kings Clerks to Henry II. in 1171, where the king is styled vestra nuljestas, and Selden finds many early uses in letters to Edward I. etc. The fullest form in English usage is "His Most Gracious Majesty"; another form is "The King's Most Excellent Majesty," as in the English Prayer-book. "His Sacred Majesty" was common in the 17th century; and of this form Selden says: "It is true, I think, that in our memory or the memory of our fathers, the use of it first began in England." "His Majesty," abbreviated H.M., is now the universal Euro pean use in speaking of any reigning king, and "His Imperial Majesty," H.I.M., of any reigning emperor. From early times, the word has been applied to the Deity.