Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/231

Ch. 3. mily intirely new, and trangers to the royal blood: but they were too well acquainted with the benefits of hereditary ucceion, and the influence which it has by cutom over the minds of the people, to depart any farther from the antient line than temporary neceity and elf-preervation required. They therefore ettled the crown, firt on king William and queen Mary, king James’s eldet daughter, for their joint lives; then on the urvivor of them; and then on the iue of queen Mary: upon failure of uch iue, it was limited to the princes Anne, king James’s econd daughter, and her iue; and latly, on failure of that, to the iue of king William, who was the grandon of Charles the firt, and nephew as well as on in law of king James the econd, being the on of Mary his eldet iter. This ettlement included all the protetant poterity of king Charles I, except uch other iue as king James might at any time have, which was totally omitted through fear of a popih ucceion. And this order of ucceion took effect accordingly. three princes therefore, king William, queen Mary, and queen Anne, did not take the crown by hereditary right or decent, but by way of donation or purchae, as the lawyers call it; by which they mean any method of acquiring an etate otherwie than by decent. The new ettlement did net merely conit in excluding king James, and the peron pretended to be prince of Wales, and then uffering the crown to decend in the old hereditary chanel: for the uual coure of decent was in ome intances broken through; and yet the convention till kept it in their eye, and paid a great, though not total, regard to it. Let us ee how the ucceion would have tood, if no abdication had happened, and king James had left no other iue than his two daughters queen Mary and queen Anne. It would have tood thus: queen Mary and her iue; queen Anne and her iue; king William and his iue. But we may remember, that queen Mary was only nominally queen, jointly with her huband king William, who alone had the regal power; and king William was peronally preferred to queen Anne, though his iue was potponed to hers. Clearly