Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/227

Ch. 3. of king Charles the econd. It is well known, that the purport of this bill was to have et aide the king’s brother and preumptive heir, the duke of York, from the ucceion, on the core of his being a papit; that it paed the houe of commons, but was rejected by the lords; the king having alo declared beforehand, that he never would be brought to conent to it. And from this tranaction we may collect two things:&ensp;1. That the crown was univerally acknowleged to be hereditary; and the inheritance indefeaible unles by parliament: ele it had been needles to prefer uch a bill.&ensp;2. That the parliament had a power to have defeated the inheritance: ele uch a bill had been ineffectual. The commons acknowleged the hereditary right then ubiting; and the lords did not dipute the power, but merely the propriety, of an excluion. However, as the bill took no effect, king James the econd ucceeded to the throne of his ancetors; and might have enjoyed it during the remainder of his life, but for his own infatuated conduct, which (with other concurring circumtances) brought on the revolution in 1688. true ground and principle, upon which that memorable event proceeded, was an entirely new cae in politics, which had never before happened in our hitory; the abdication of the reigning monarch, and the vacancy of the throne thereupon. It was not a defeazance of the right of ucceion, and a new limitation of the crown, by the king and both houes of parliament: it was the act of the nation alone, upon a conviction that there was no king in being. For in a full aembly of the lords and commons, met in convention upon the uppoition of this vacancy, both houes came to this reolution; “that king James the econd, having endeavoured to ubvert the contitution of the kingdom, by breaking the original contract between king and people; and, by the advice of jeuits and other wicked perons, having violated the fundamental laws; and having withdrawn himelf out of this kingdom; has abdicated the government, and that the throne is thereby vacant.” Thus ended at once, by this udden Rh