KING. 



The preamble to the bill of rights ex- 

 pressly declares, that the lords spiritual 

 and temporal, and commons, assembled 

 at Westminster, lawfully, fully, and freely 

 represent all the estates of the people of 

 the English realm. The lords are not 

 less the trustees and guardians of their 

 country than the members of the House 

 of Commons. It was justly said, when 

 the royal prerogatives were suspended, 

 during his Majesty's illness in 1788, that 

 the two houses of Parliament were the 

 organs by which the people expressed 

 their will : and in the House of Com- 

 mons, on the 16th of December, in that 

 year, two declaratory resolutions were 

 accordingly passed, importing, 1. The 

 interruption of the royal authority ; 2- 

 That it was the duty of the two Houses 

 of Parliament to provide the means of 

 supplying that defect. On the 23d of 

 the same month a third resolution pass- 

 ed, empowering the Lord Chancellor of 

 Great Britain to affix the great seal to 

 such bill of limitations as might be ne- 

 cessary to restrict the power of the fu- 

 ture regent to be named by Parliament. 

 This bill was accordingly brought tor- 

 ward, not without considerable opposi- 

 tion to its provisions, as well from pri- 

 vate motives, as on forcible political 

 grounds ; and at length, happily for the 

 public, arrested in its progress, by the 

 providential recovery of his Majesty, in 

 March 1789. It is observable, how- 

 ever, that no bill was ever afterwards in- 

 troduced to guard against a future emer- 

 gency of a similar nature : on the grounds, 

 undoubtedly, of delicacy to a monarch 

 Universally beloved ; in the hope of the 

 improbability that such a circumstance 

 should recur in future ; and in the con- 

 fidence of the omnipotence of Parliament, 

 if necessarily called upon again. See Bel- 

 sham's " Memoirs of George III.," sub. 

 an. 1788-9: and the "Journals of the 

 Lords and Commons." 



Towards the end of King William's 

 reign, the King and Parliament thought it 

 necessary to exert their power of limiting 

 and appointing the succession, in order to 

 prevent the vacancy of the throne ; which 

 must have ensued upon their deaths, as 

 no further provision was made at the re- 

 volution, than for the issue of Queen Ma- 

 ry, Queen Anne, and King William. It 

 had been previously, by the statute 1 

 William and Mary, stat. 2, c. 2, enact- 

 ed, that every person who should be 

 reconciled to, or hold communion with, 

 the see of Rome, who should profess the 

 jPopish religion, or who should marry a 



Papist, should be excluded, and fop 

 ever incapable to inherit, possess, or en- 

 joy the crown ; and that in such case the 

 people should be absolved from their alle- 

 giance (to such person), and the crown 

 should desend to such persons, being 

 protestants, as would have inherited the 

 same, in case the person so reconciled, 

 holding communion, professing, or mar- 

 rying, were naturally dead. To act, 

 therefore, consistently with themselves, 

 and, at the same time, pay as much re- 

 gard to the old hereditary line as their 

 former resolutions would admit, they 

 turned their eyes on the princess Sophia, 

 Electress and Dutchess Uowager of Han- 

 over: for, upon the impending extinc- 

 tion of the Protestant posterity of Charles 

 I., the old law of legal descent directed 

 them to recur to the descendants of James 

 I. ; and the Princess Sophia, being th 

 youngest daughter of Elizabeth, Queen 

 of Bohemia, who was the daughter of 

 James I,, was the nearest of the ancient 

 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 stat. 12 and 13 William 

 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 establish- 

 ed. 



This is the last limitation of the crown 

 that has been made by Parliament; and 

 all the several actual limitations, from the 

 time of Henry YI. to the present, (stated 

 at large in 1 Cornm. c. 3.) do clearly prove 

 the power of the King and Parliament to 

 new-model or alter the succession. And 

 indeed it is now again made highly penal 

 to dispute it ; for by stat. 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 only by preaching, teaching, or 

 advised speaking, he shall incur the penal- 

 ties of a prsemuniTe. The Princess Sophia 

 dying before Queen Anne, the inheritance, 

 thus limited, descended on her son King 

 George I. ; and having taken effect in his 

 person, from him it descended to his late 

 Majesty King George II., and from him 

 to his grandson and heir, our present gra- 



