Act of Settlement 1701
The Act of Settlement 1701 was a law passed by the Parliament of England to secure the Protestant succession to the throne. It excluded Catholics from the line of succession and established that only Protestant descendants of Sophia, Electress of Hanover, could inherit the throne. The act aimed to prevent a Catholic monarch and ensure the stability of the Protestant establishment in England.
5 Key excerpts on "Act of Settlement 1701"
eBook - ePubSophia: Mother of Kings
The Finest Queen Britain Never Had
- Catherine Curzon(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Pen & Sword History(Publisher)
...As Liselotte later recalled, ‘it is not wonderful that one no longer finds the gaiety in Hanover that was once there, the Elector is so cold that he turns everything into ice. His father and uncle were not like him.’ 19 The Act of Settlement Across the sea, the English Parliament swung into action to ensure that nothing untoward could occur to upset the future of the Protestant succession. The result was the Act of Settlement, which established that, though any as-yet unborn heirs to William III and the future Queen Anne would take precedence, should there be no children born, then the English crown would pass into Hanoverian hands. Since Sophia’s elder sister and only living sibling, Louise Hollandine, was as a Catholic banned from inheriting the throne, this meant the crown would go to our very own dowager electress. Even at this late stage, hope wasn’t lost for the Pretender. As the Catholic half-brother of Anne, should he convert to Protestantism he could still inherit in her place...
eBook - ePubDeism in Enlightenment England
Theology, politics, and Newtonian public science
- Jeffrey Wigelsworth(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Manchester University Press(Publisher)
...The Act was the logical continuation of the Revolution of 1688–89, in which William and Mary had brought peace to England by securing Protestantism, and this would be continued by the Hanoverians. Toland concluded by asking that the ‘Names of the Princess Sophia and her Issue be inserted in our public Prayers, with the rest of the Royal Family’. Passing the governance of England to Protestants from Hanover would restore England to its rightful place at the head of Protestant Europe and allow it to act a as buffer against France and the Pope. 7 Therefore, Toland submitted that the Act of Succession did more than secure Protestantism in England: it secured the safety of all Europe. On the basis of the contents of Anglia Libera and at the urging of his secret benefactor Robert Harley, Toland accompanied the mission in July 1701, led by Lord Macclesfield, to present the Act of Settlement to the Electress Sophia. Before he arrived on the Continent, Toland’s reputation had preceded him. The famed natural philosopher and privy councillor at Hanover, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, received a warning from Baron Schütz, envoy to Queen Anne, that English bishops hated Toland, as did many ministers of state. Furthermore, Schütz hoped that Leibniz would encourage Sophia to keep her distance from this controversial figure. 8 Despite this caution, Toland was able to gain access to Sophia, her family, and Leibniz himself. Prior to departing for Hanover, Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, feared that Toland might display the same impolite behaviour that he had shown in Oxford. Shaftesbury was grandson to the first Earl of Shaftesbury, who had taken a leading role during the unsuccessful attempt to exclude James II from the throne. The new earl too had a predilection for politics and served as an MP from 1695 until ill health forced his retirement in 1698...
eBook - ePub- Sarah McKibbin, Libby Connors, Marcus Harmes(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Hart Publishing(Publisher)
...From time to time, the chapter will break its chronology back to the seventeenth century, including a reappearance by Sir Edward Coke, to explore the administration of justice before the Glorious Revolution, to provide context for the administration of justice in the eighteenth century. Some of this chapter sits in the domain of criminal law, although other sections continue the focus on constitutional law in chapter three. Learning Resources The content in this chapter is supported by: Chapter Overview Learning Outcomes At the end of this chapter, readers should understand: • The importance of the Habeas Corpus Act 1679 and the Bill of Rights 1689, including their application in modern Australia. • The separation of powers, responsible government and judicial tenure. • The origins of defence mechanisms, lawyers’ participation in trials, and the presumption of innocence. • The legal issues involved in the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. The Act of Settlement 1701 The political and legal developments of the eighteenth century emerge from the religious tensions of the seventeenth, including the overthrow of the Catholic James II. The Act of Settlement 1701 (as originally passed) secured the Protestant succession to the throne by excluding Roman Catholics, and those who marry Roman Catholics, from the line of succession. As will be discussed shortly, the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 (UK) repealed the provisions that disabled those who might be in line to the throne from marrying Catholics. The Protestant Succession Mary II, daughter of James II and wife of William III, died in 1694 without any surviving children. After William III, the closest Protestant heir to the throne was William Duke of Gloucester, the son of William’s sister-in-law Princess Anne – James II’s daughter and Mary’s sister. The Duke of Gloucester was Anne’s only surviving child; however, he died in 1700 from multiple illnesses...
eBook - ePubHappy and Glorious
The Revolution of 1688
- Michael I Wilson(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- The History Press(Publisher)
...8 A FTERMATH W ith the suppression of the uprisings in Scotland and Ireland it seemed that the Revolution was complete. Declared ‘Glorious’ in its own day (although perhaps our modern view of it is rather less generous), there can be no doubt that many of those who lived through it and the years that followed were aware that significant political changes had taken place. Two such changes in particular stood out. First: limits to the powers of the monarch had begun to be clearly defined. There would no longer be much room for serious doubts as to what a reigning king or queen might or might not do without the sanction of Parliament. It is true that William himself continued to bypass Parliament in some crucial areas of policy, notably foreign affairs and the conduct of war. However, the 1701 Act of Settlement eventually brought these matters too into the spotlight of regular Parliamentary scrutiny. 1 Second: despite a new and sometimes fragile climate of toleration towards religious Dissent (although Non-conformists were still barred from holding public office until 1828), Anglican Protestantism had been confirmed as the official religious basis of social and political life, and the royal Protestant succession was assured. Other, more obviously beneficial spin-offs included the final abolition of two especially contentious features of James II’s reign – the use of the royal dispensing powers, and the maintenance of a standing army without Parliamentary consent. Moreover Parliament would meet regularly, not at the behest or whim of the reigning monarch. Within the narrower confines of Government the customary presence of the monarch at ministerial or Cabinet meetings soon fell into disuse...
eBook - ePubConsolidating Conquest
Ireland 1603-1727
- Padraig Lenihan(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Stuart amnesia was not peculiar to Irish royalists. English cavaliers forced to sell off land to pay composition fines and punitively heavy taxes found these sales irreversible. 22 Most of the commissioners appointed to implement Charles’s wishes had a vested interest in keeping the land settlement intact: included were Broghill and Coote (newly created Earls of Orrery and Mountrath, respectively) and Sir William Petty. 23 In the event the law courts refused to enforce their decisions and Charles was forced to defer the land question to an Irish parliament that sat from May 1661 until August 1666. The Commons was returned on the Cromwellian franchise and so was an all-Protestant assembly; members successfully challenged the election of the single Catholic, Geoffrey Browne MP, for the borough of Tuam. The Protestant character of the House was further assured by having the oaths of allegiance and supremacy administered to members. 24 Unsurprisingly, parliament was hardly more sympathetic than the commissioners to Catholic demands. The preamble to the parliament’s draft bill for an Act of Settlement invented an agreeable past where the King’s Protestant subjects in Ireland subdued Irish rebels during his ‘absence’ and deprived them of their estates as punishment. Having done so, they promptly recalled their king as soon as they could. Orrery glibly explained away any apparent inconsistencies: if his fellow ‘Old Protestants’ might be ‘seemingly rebels’, they were driven by ‘a necessity only created by the Irish Papists themselves’. 25 It was all the fault of the Papists. Adventurers and soldiers had loaned money or risked their lives to reduce Papist rebels to obedience to the crown and so deserved Charles’s favour alongside these hardy Old Protestants. 26 The bill was sent, in accordance with Poynings’ Law, to be ratified by the English Privy Council. Agents for Irish Catholics at court lobbied furiously against the bill but failed to block it...
