[entrusted somewhere; else the whole frame of government must be dissolved and perish. The lords and commons having therefore determined this main fundamental article, that there was a vacancy of the throne, they proceeded to fill up that vacancy in such manner as they judged the most proper. And this was done by their declaration of 12th February, 1688 (n), in the following manner:-" that "William and Mary, prince and princess of Orange, be "and be declared king and queen, to hold the crown and royal dignity during their lives, and the life of the survivor "of them; and that the sole and full exercise of the regal "power be only in, and executed by, the said prince of Orange, in the names of the said prince and princess, "during their joint lives; and after their deceases the said crown and royal dignity to be to the heirs of the body "of the said princess; and for default of such issue, to the "Princess Anne of Denmark and the heirs of her body; "and for default of such issue, to the heirs of the body of "the said prince of Orange."

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Perhaps, upon the principles before established, the convention might (if they pleased) have vested the regal dignity in a family entirely new, and strangers to the royal blood; but they were too well acquainted with the benefits of hereditary succession, and the influence which it has by custom over the minds of the people, to depart any further from the antient line than temporary necessity and self-preservation 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 survivor of them; and then on the issue of Queen Mary; upon failure of such issue, it was limited to the Princess Anne, King James's second daughter, and her issue; and lastly on failure of that, to the issue of King William, who was the grandson of Charles the first, and nephew as well as son-in-law of King James the second, being a son of Mary his eldest sister. This settlement included all the protestant posterity

(n) Com. Journ. 12th Feb. 1688.

[of King Charles the first, except such other issue as King James might at any time have, which was totally omitted, through fear of a popish succession. And this order of succession 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, in the technical sense. The new settlement did not merely consist in excluding King James, and the person pretended to be prince of Wales, and then suffering the crown to descend in the old hereditary channel; for the usual course of descent was in some instances broken through, and yet the convention still kept it in their eye, and paid a great, though not total, regard to it. Let us see how the succession would have stood, if no abdication had happened, and King James had left no other issue than his two daughters, Queen Mary and Queen Anne. It would have stood thus: Queen Mary and her issue; Queen Anne and her issue; King William and his issue. But we may remember that Queen Mary was only nominally queen, jointly with her husband King William, who alone had the regal power; and King William was personally preferred to Queen Anne, though his issue was postponed to hers. Clearly therefore these princes were successively in possession of the crown by a title different from the usual course of descents.

It was towards the end of King William's reign, when all hopes of any surviving issue from any of these princes died with the duke of Gloucester,] the last surviving child of the Princess Anne, [that the king and parliament thought it necessary again to exert their power of limiting and appointing the succession, in order to prevent another vacancy of the throne; which must have ensued upon. their deaths, as no further provision was made at the revolution than for the issue of Queen Mary, Queen Anne and King William. The parliament had previously, by the statute of 1 W. & M. sess. 2, c. 2, enacted, that every person who should be reconciled to, or hold communion with,

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[the see of Rome, should profess the popish religion, or should marry a papist, should be excluded and be for ever incapable to inherit, possess, or enjoy the crown; and that in such case the people should be absolved from their allegiance, and the crown should descend to such persons, being protestants, as would have inherited the same, in case the person so reconciled, holding communion, professing, or marrying, were naturally dead. To act therefore consistently with themselves, and at the same time pay as much regard to the old hereditary line as their former resolutions would admit, they turned their eyes on the Princess Sophia, electress and duchess dowager of Hanover, the most accomplished princess of her age (0). For, upon the impending extinction of the protestant posterity of Charles the first, the old law of regal descent directed them to recur to the descendants of James the first; and the Princess Sophia, being the youngest daughter of Elizabeth, queen of Bohemia, who was the daughter of James the first, was the nearest of the antient blood royal, who was not incapacitated by professing the popish religion. On her, therefore, and the heirs of her body, being protestants, the remainder of the crown, expectant on the death of King William and Queen Anne, without issue, was settled by statute 12 & 13 Will. III. c. 2. And at the same time it was enacted, that whosoever should hereafter come to the possession of the crown should join in the communion of the church of England, as by law established.

This is the last limitation of the crown that has been made by parliament; and these several actual limitations, from the time of Henry the fourth to the present, do clearly prove the power of the king and parliament to new-model

(0) Sandford, in his genealogical history, published A.D. 1677, speaking (p. 535) of the princesses Elizabeth, Louisa, and Sophia, daughters of the queen of Bohemia, says, the

first was reputed the most learned, the second the greatest artist, and the last one of the most accomplished ladies in Europe.

[or alter the succession. And indeed it is now again made highly penal to dispute it; for by the statute 6 Anne, c. 7, it is enacted, that if any person maliciously, advisedly and directly, shall 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 shall be guilty of high treason; or if he maintains the same by only preaching, teaching, or advised speaking, he shall incur the penalties of a præmunire.

The Princess Sophia dying before Queen Anne, the inheritance thus limited descended on her son and heir King George the first; and having on the death of the queen taken effect in his person, from him it descended to King George the second; from him to his grandson and heir, King George the third;] from him to his son King George the fourth, who was succeeded by his brother King William the fourth; and from the monarch last mentioned, the crown descended to his heiress, the daughter of his brother Edward, Duke of Kent-our present gracious sovereign Queen Victoria.

[Hence it is easy to collect, that the title to the crown is at present hereditary, though not quite so absolutely hereditary as formerly; and the common stock or ancestor, from whom the descent must be derived, is also different. Formerly the common stock was King Egbert;] afterwards William the Conqueror; and [now it is the Princess Sophia, in whom the inheritance was vested by the new king and parliament. Formerly the descent was absolute, and the crown went to the next heir without any restriction; but now, upon the new settlement, the inheritance is conditional; being limited to such heirs only of the body of the Princess Sophia as are protestant members of the church of England, and are married to none but protestants.]

In the due medium which has been explained between a merely elective body on the one hand, and absolute hereditary right on the other, [consists the true constitutional

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[notion of the right of succession to the imperial crown of these kingdoms. The extremes between which it steers, are each of them equally destructive of those ends for which societies were formed and are kept on foot. Where the magistrate, upon every succession, is elected by the people, and may, by the express provision of the laws, be deposed (if not punished) by his subjects, this may sound 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 passive obedience is surely of all constitutions the most thoroughly slavish and dreadful. But when such an hereditary right, as our laws have created and vested in the royal stock, is closely interwoven with those liberties which, we have seen in a former chapter, are equally the inheritance of the subject; this union will form a constitution, in theory the most beautiful of any, in practice the most approved, and in duration, it is to be hoped, the most permanent. It was the duty of an expounder of our laws to lay this constitution before the reader in its true and genuine light; it is the duty of every good Englishman to understand, to revere, to defend it.]