PERHAPS, upon the principles before established, the convention might (if they pleased) have vested the regal dignity in a family entirely new, and ftrangers to the royal blood: but they were too well acquainted with the benefits of hereditary fucceffion, and the influence which it has by cuftom over the minds of the people, to depart any farther from the antient line than temporary neceflity and felf-prefervation required. They therefore settled the crown, first on king William and queen Mary, king James's eldest daughter, for their joint lives: then on the furvivor of them; and then on the iffue of queen Mary: upon failure of fuch iffue, it was limited to the princefs Anne, king James's fecond daughter, and her iffue; and lastly, on failure of that to the iffue of king William, who was the grandfon of Charles the firft, and nephew as well as fon-in-law of king James the fecond, being the fon of Mary his eldeft fifter. This fettlement included all the protestant pofterity of king Charles I, except fuch other iffue as king James might at any time have, which was totally omitted through fear of a popith fucceffion. And this order of fucceffion took effect accordingly.

THESE three princes therefore, king William, queen Mary, and queen Anne, did not take the crown by hereditary right or descent, but by way of donation or purchase, as the lawyers call it; by which they mean any method of acquiring an estate otherwife than by defcent. The new fettlement did not merely confift in excluding king James, and the perfon pretended to be prince of Wales, and then fuffering the crown to defcend in the old hereditary channel: for the ufual course of defcent was in fome inftances broken through; and yet the convention still kept it in their eye, and paid a great, though not total, regard to it. Let us fee how the fucceffion would have ftood, if no abdication had happened, and king James had left no other iffue than his two daughters queen Mary and queen Anne. It would have stood thus: queen Mary and her iffue; queen Anne and her issue; king William and his iffue. But we may remember, that

queen Mary was only nominally queen, jointly with heṛ husband king William, who alone had the regal power; and king William was perfonally preferred to queen Anne, though his iffue was poftponed to hers. Clearly therefore these princes were fucceffively in poffeffion of the crown by a title different from the ufual courfe of defcent.

It was towards the end of king William's reign, when all hopes of any furviving issue from any of these princes died with the duke of Glocefter, that the king and parliament thought it neceffary again to exert their power of limiting and appointing the fucceffion, in order to prevent another vacancy of the throne; which must have enfued upon their deaths, as no farther provifion was made at the revolution, than for the iffue of queen Mary, queen Anne, and king William. The parliament had previously by the statute of 1 W. & M. ft. 2. c. 2. enacted, that every person who should be reconciled to, or hold communion with, the fee of Rome, fhould profefs the popifh religion, or fhould marry a papist, should be excluded and for ever incapable to inherit, poffefs, or enjoy, the crown; and that in fuch cafe the people should be abfolved from their allegiance, and the crown fhould defcend to fuch perfons, being proteftants, as would have inherited the fame, in cafe the perfon fo reconciled, holding communion, profeffing, or marrying, were naturally dead. To act therefore confiftently with themselves, and at the same time pay as much regard to the old hereditary line as their former refolutions wou'd admit, they turned their eyes on the princefs Sophia, electress and dutchefs dowager of Hanover, the most accomplished princess of her age. For, upon the impending extinction of the protestant posterity of Charles the firft, the old law of regal defcent directed them to recur to the defcendants of James the first; and the princefs Sophia, being the youngest daughter of Elizabeth queen of Bohemia, who

Sandford in his genealogical hiftory, published A. D. 1677, speaking (page 535) of the princeffes Elizabeth, Louifa, and Sophia, daughters of the

queen of Bohemia, fays, the first was reputed the most learned, the fecond the greatest artist, and the laft one of the moft accomplished ladies in Europe.

was

was the daughter of James the firft, was the nearest of the antient blood royal, who was not incapacitated by profeffing the popifh religion. On her therefore, and the heirs of her body, being proteftants, the remainder of the crown, expectant on the death of king William and queen Anne without iffue, was fettled by statute 12 and 13 W. III. c. 2. And at the fame time it was enacted, that whofoever fhould hereafter come to the poffeffion of the crown fhould join in the communion of the church of England as by law established.

THIS is the laft limitation of the crown that has been made by parliament and these several actual limitations, from the . time of Henry IV to the present, do clearly prove the power of the king and parliament to new-model or alter the fucceffion. And indeed it is now again made highly penal to difpute it for by the ftatute 6 Ann. c. 7. it is enacted, that if any perfon maliciously, advisedly, and directly, fhall maintain by writing or printing, that the kings of this realm with the authority of parliament are not able to make laws to bind the crown and the descent thereof, he fhall be guilty of high treafon; or if he maintains the fame by only preaching, teaching, or advised speaking, he shall incur the penalties of a praemunire.

THE princefs Sophia dying before queen Anne, the inheritance thus limited defcended on her fon and heir king George the firft; and, having on the death of the queen taken effect in his perfon, from him it defcended to his late majefty king George the fecond; and from him to his grandfon and heir, our present gracious fovereign, king George the third.

HENCE it is easy to collect, that the title to the crown is at prefent hereditary, though not quite fo abfolutely hereditary as formerly and the common stock or ancestor, from whom the defcent must be derived, is alfo different. Formerly the common stock was king Egbert; then William the conqueror; afterwards in James the firft's time the two common stocks united, and fo continued till the vacancy of the throne in 1688: now it is the princefs Sophia, in whom the inherit

ance

ance was vested by the new king and parliament. Formerly the defcent was abfolute, and, the crown went to the next heir without any reftriction: but now, upon the new settlement, the inheritance is conditional; being limited to fuch heirs only, of the body of the princefs Sophia, as are protestant members of the church of England, and are married to none but protestants.

AND in this due medium confifts, I apprehend, the true conftitutional notion of the right of fuccellion to the imperial crown of these kingdoms. The extremes, between which it fteers, are each of them equally deftructive of those ends for which focieties were formed and are kept on foot. Where the magistrate, upon every fucceffion, is elected by the people, and may by the exprefs provifion of the laws be depofed (if not punished) by his fubjects, this may found like the perfection of liberty, and look well enough when delineated on paper; but in practice will be ever productive of tumult, contention, and anarchy, And, on the other hand, divine indefeasible hereditary right, when coupled with the doctrine of unlimited paffive obedience, is furely of all conftitutions the moft thoroughly flavifh and dreadful. But when fuch an hereditary right, as our laws have created and vested in the royal ftock, is clofely interwoven with thofe liberties, which, we have feen in a former chapter, are equally the inheritance of the fubject; this union will form a conftitution, in theory the most beautiful of any, in practice the most approved, and, I trust, in duration the most permanent. It was the duty of an expounder of our laws to lay this conftitution before the ftudent in it's true and genuine light: it is the duty of every good Englishman to understand, to revere, to defend it.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH,

OF THE KING'S ROYAL FAMILY.

TH

HE firft and most confiderable branch of the king's royal family, regarded by the laws of England, is the queen.

THE queen of England is either queen regent, queen confort, or queen dowager. The queen regent, regnant, or sovereign, is the who holds the crown in her own right; as the first (and perhaps the fecond) queen Mary, queen Elizabeth, and queen Anne; and fuch a one has the fame powers, prerogatives, rights, dignities, and duties, as if fhe had been a king. This was obferved in the entrance of the last chapter, and is exprefsly declared by ftatute i Mar. I. ft. 3. c. 1. But the queen confort is the wife of the reigning king; and he, by virtue of her marriage, is participant of divers prerogatives above other women “.

a Finch. L. 36.

AND,