KING. 
Westminster, lawfully, fully, and freely re- 
present all the estates of the people of this 
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 ill- 
ness in 1788, that the two houses of Parlia- 
ment were the organs by which the people 
expressed their will ; and in the House of 
Commons, on the 16th of December, in 
that year, two declaratory resolutions were 
accordingly passed, importing, 1. The in- 
terruption of the royal authority ; 2. That 
it was the duty of the two Houses of Par- 
liament to provide the means of supplying 
that defect. On the 23d of the same month 
a third resolution passed, empowering the 
Lord Chancellor of Great Britain to affix 
the great seal to such bill of limitations as 
might be necessary to restrict the power of 
the future regent to be named by Parlia- 
ment. This bill was accordingly brought 
forward, not withput considerable opposi- 
tion to its provisions, as well from private 
motives, as on forcible political grounds ; 
and at length, happily for the public, arrest- 
ed in its progress, by the providential reco- 
very of his Majesty, in March 1789. It is 
observable, however, that no bill was ever 
afterwards introduced to guafrd against a 
future emergency of a similar nature : on 
the grounds, undoubtedly, of delicacy to a 
monarch universally beloved ; in the hope 
of the improbability that such a circum- 
stance should recur in future; and in the 
contidence of the omnipotence of Parlia- 
ment, if necessarily called upon again. See 
Belsham’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 th.ought it neces- 
sary to exert their power of limiting and 
appointing the succession, in order to pre- 
vent the vacancy of the throne ; which must 
have ensued upon their deaths, as no fur- 
ther provision was made at the revolution, 
than for the issue of Queen Mary, Queen 
Anne, and King William. It had been pre- 
viously, by the statute 1 William and Mary, 
stat. 2, c. 2, enacted, that every person 
who should be reconciled to, of hold com- 
munion with, the see of Rome, who should 
profess the Popish religion, or who should 
marry a Papist, should be excluded, and 
for 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 descend to such persons, being pro- 
testants, as would have inherited the same, 
in case the person so reconciled, holding 
communion, professing, or marrying, were 
naturally dead. To act, therefore, consist- 
ently with themselves, and, at the same 
time, pay as much regard to the old heredi- 
tary line as their former resolutions would 
admit, they turned their eyes on the Prin- 
cess Sophia, Electress and Dutchess Dow- 
ager of Hanover : for, upon the impending 
extinction of the Protestant posterity of 
Charles I., the old law of legal descent di- 
rected them to recur to the descendants of 
James I. ; and the Princess Sophia, being 
the youngest daughter of Elizabeth, Queen 
of Bohemia, who was the daughter of 
James I., was the nearest of the ancient 
blood-royal, w'ho 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 set- 
tled by stat. 12 and 13 William III. c. 2. 
And at the same time it was enacted, that 
whosoever should hereafter come to the pos- 
session of the crown, should join in the com- 
munion of the Church of England, as by law 
established. 
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 VI. to the present, (stated at 
large in 1 Comm. 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, ad- 
visedly, 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 praemunire. 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 
hLs grandson and heir, our present gracious 
sovereign King George III. Formerly the 
common stock from which the heirs to the 
crown were derived^ was King Egbert, 
