Royal Prerogative

A few weeks ago I used the term "Royal Prerogative" in relation to granting "Achievement of Arms" which is an honour bestowed by the Crown by H.M. College or Arms. A gentlemen was questioning my "right" to bear Arms as I said it was granted under Royal Prerogative instead of saying it was granted by The College or Arms which to him made it sound as if I had not been granted Arms by the College. So is the right to grant honours a Royal Prerogative? The answer is yes and the below proves this. 

Under the British constitution, sweeping executive powers, known as the royal prerogative, are nominally vested in the monarch. In exercising these powers the monarch normally defers to the advice of the prime minister or other ministers. This principle, which can be traced back to the Restoration, was most famously articulated by the Victorian writer Walter Bagehot as "the Queen reigns, but she does not rule". The precise extent of the royal prerogative has never formally been delineated, but in 2004, Her Majesty's Government published some of the powers, in order to be more transparent: 

Domestic powers

• The power to dismiss and appoint a Prime Minister
• The power to dismiss and appoint other ministers
• The power to summon and prorogue Parliament
• The power to grant or refuse Royal Assent to bills (making them valid and law)
• The power to commission officers in the Armed Forces
• The power to command the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom
• The power to appoint members to the Queen's Council
• The power to issue and withdraw passports
• The power to grant Prerogative of mercy (though Capital Punishment is abolished, this power is still used to remedy errors in sentence calculation)
• The power to grant honours
• The power to create corporations by Royal Charter
• The power to appoint bishops and archbishops of the Church of England.

Foreign powers

• The power to ratify and make treaties
• The power to declare War and Peace
• The power to deploy the Armed Forces overseas
• The power to recognise states
• The power to credit and receive diplomats

The most important prerogative still personally exercised by the monarch is the choice of whom to appoint Prime Minister. The most recent occasion when the monarch has had to exercise these powers was in February 1974, when Edward Heath resigned from the position of prime minister after failing to win an overall majority at the General Election or to negotiate a coalition. Queen Elizabeth II appointed Harold Wilson, leader of the Labour Party, as prime minister, exercising her prerogative after extensive consultation with the Privy Council. The Labour Party had the largest number of seats in the House of Commons, but not an overall majority. The 2010 general election also resulted in a hung parliament. After several days of negotiations, between the parties, Queen Elizabeth II invited David Cameron to form a government on the advice of the outgoing prime minister Gordon Brown.

The monarch formerly enjoyed the power to dissolve Parliament (normally on the request of the prime minister). However, this power was explicitly removed from the monarch by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. The last monarch to dismiss a prime minister who had not suffered a defeat on a motion of confidence in the House of Commons, or to appoint a prime minister who clearly did not enjoy a majority in that House, was William IV who in 1834 dismissed the Government of Lord Melbourne, replacing him with Robert Peel (The Duke of Wellington briefly heading a caretaker ministry as Peel was on holiday in Italy at the time). Peel resigned after failing to win the 1835 General Election — prior to the 1832 Reform Act, which reduced the number of rotten and pocket boroughs, it would have been very unusual for a government with Royal backing to be defeated in this way.