Page:The life and times of King Edward VII by Whates, Harry Richard 1.djvu/37

19 THE BILL OF RIGHTS his admission to the Electoral College, which was not entered until his son our own George I. had succeeded him. The House of Hanover was, as has been said, a Protestant House, and in view of the recurrence of the controversy about the Royal Declaration against certain Roman doctrines a controversy swiftly ripening to a settlement in our own time it may not be amiss to recall the cir- Papists, or Protestants who married Papists. The Sovereign of England must therefore be a Protestant, and his wife also conditions fulfilled by the heir of Ernest Augustus and Sophia. On the death of the only surviving son of Anne the Duke of Gloucester it became neces- sary to provide for the succession to the Throne of England, for James II. still lived, and the son who was afterwards FLIGHT OF JAMES II. FROM LONDON. (From an engraving by Romeyn de Hoogke.) cumstances under which none other than a Protestant Sovereign can sit on the Throne of England. On the arrival of William and Mary after the flight of James, the House of Commons sent up to the lyords a resolution declaring that a Popish Sovereign could not coexist with a Protestant Government ; and to this the I^ords agreed. This principle was incorporated with the Bill of Rights, which became a statute in the new Parliament in October, 1689. This Act, after restricting the powers of the Crown in various matters which do not here concern us, excluded from the throne to carry the Stuart sword as far south as Derby in a futile effort to recover his inheritance. The Act of Settlement of 1701 was therefore passed, though not without considerable intrigue for and against the exiled family. This Act still further limited the Royal Prerogative by making the judges irremovable by the Sovereign ; but its cardinal provision was that the Crown should pass on the death of Anne to the Electress Sophia and her Protestant descendants. The Electress was then a woman of seventy, and one of the most remarkable characters in Europe. Her Stuart ancestry showed