The essential elements were livery of seisin (delivery of possession), which consisted in formally giving to the feoffee on the land a clod or turf, or a growing twig, as a symbol of the transfer of the land, and words by the feoffor declaratory of his intent to deliver possession to the feoffee with a "limitation" of the estate intended to be transferred.
In spite of the opposition in the colonies to the Declaratory Act, the Townshend Acts and the tea tax, Franklin continued to assure the British ministry and the British public of the loyalty of the colonists.
At its first session the assembly passed an act declaratory of the rights and privileges of the people, and much like the charter of liberties and privileges enacted in 1683, except that annual instead of triennial sessions of the assembly were now requested and, as was also provided in Sloughter's commission and instructions, religious liberty was denied to Roman Catholics.
In the Lutheran church also the practice of private confession survived the Reformation, together with both the exhibitive (I forgive, &c.) and declaratory (I declare and pronounce) forms of absolution.
According to Semitic ideas the declaration of law is quite a distinct function from the enforcing of it, and the royal executive came into no collision with the purely declaratory functions of the priests.