66 upon resolution the reign of Charles II., and whom William had summoned, concurred in the request and recommendation of the Lords. The prince complied with both. A Convention of the estates of the Convention realm was summoned, and met on the 22nd of meets, 1688-9, January 1688-9. After several debates in either January 22. House and conferences between the two, at length, on the 6th of February, both agreed in the Agrees discreet formula, "That King James II., having on a "endeavoured to subvert the constitution of the declaring the throne 'Kingdom by breaking the original contract vacant, "between King and People, and having, by the February 6. "advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons "violated the fundamental laws and withdrawn "himself out of the Kingdom, has abdicated the government, and that the throne is thereby "vacant." The Whigs would have preferred that Parliament should have declared, as the Scottish Parliament actually did in the April of the following year, that James had forfeited his right to the crown, but "abdicated" sounded better in the ears of the Tories and gained their votes. The two Houses then resolved to offer the Crown offered to crown to William and Mary. In doing this they William acted as a Saxon Wittenagemot might have done and Mary. in similar circumstances, as the Parliament before which Henry of Bolingbroke challenged the crown did, practically if not formally. It is instructive to compare the transaction of 1688 66 Q son between Revolutions of 1399 and 1688. Compari- with its precedent of 1399. In either case the estates of the realm declared that the king had broken his compact with his people, and that the throne was vacant. In 1399 the king was declared to have forfeited his throne, in 1688 to have abdicated it. This points to the growth during the interval of the doctrine of hereditary right. On the other hand, in 1688 the Convention, having declared the throne vacant, assumed to itself the right of supplying the vacancy. This the assembly of 1399 had not ventured to do. Henry of Bolingbroke had insinuated three titles, a baseless title of hereditary right, a claim founded on Richard's misgovernment, and another on conquest. He made these claims before the great assembly of the nation, and this body admitted his title to the crown without entering upon the grounds of it. Now Parliament had declared the throne vacant, and resolved to offer it to the prince and princess of the royal family who were best qualified to mount it. William's William did sagacity had saved him from the snare of advancing one of Henry IV.'s pretensions, that of conquest. But the temptation to do it was strong, for it was one which went behind the claim by hereditary title. The strongest adherent of the divine right of kings, whilst he denied that any misconduct, however flagrant, of the sovereign could justify his subjects in deposing him, yet not claim by conquest. offered to admitted that his claims might be defeated by another prince on an appeal to the god of battles. On the 13th of February 1688-9 the crown was Crown solemnly offered to William and Mary, and ac- william cepted by them. From that hour the title of and Mary. every English sovereign to the throne has been February derived from "the great revolution" of 1688. WILLIAM AND MARY, WILLIAM AND ANNE, A.D. 1688-9-1714. 1688-9, 13. turned into a Parlia Succession tions. The Convention was turned into a Parliament. Convention In the second sitting of the new Parliament an Act was passed for settling the succession of the ment. crown. It was limited, in accordance with the Act. resolution of the Convention, to William and Mary Its limitaand the survivor of them; after their deaths to the heirs of the body of Mary; for default of such issue, to the Princess Anne and the heirs of her body; and for default of issue of Anne, to the heirs of the body of the Prince of Orange. The Act then, after reciting that "it hath been found Roman "by experience that it is inconsistent with the excluded "safety and welfare of this Protestant Kingdom from the "to be governed by a popish prince or by any "King or Queen marrying a papist," proceeded to enact that all and every person and persons that was, were, or should be reconciled to, or should hold communion with the See or Church Catholics throne. Birth of the Duke of Gloucester, 24. two other Anne. of Rome, or should profess the popish religion, or marry a papist, should be excluded and be for ever incapable to inherit, possess, or enjoy the crown; and that in all and every such case or cases, the people should be and were thereby absolved of their allegiance, and the crown should from time to time descend to and be enjoyed by such person or persons, being Protestants, as should have inherited or enjoyed the same in case the said person or persons so reconciled, holding communion, or professing, or marrying as aforesaid were naturally dead. At the time when this Act was passed the Princess Anne had no child. But on the 24th 1689, July of July 1689 she bore a son, who was christened William, and usually styled the Duke of Gloucester, though the patent for creating him Birth of such was never actually passed. In 1690 and children of 1692 Anne bore a daughter, Mary, and a son, George, but neither survived the day of birth. Shortly after the death of the infant prince George, a daughter, Mary Louisa Teresa, was born to James II. and Mary of Modena in their exile. Nobody appears to have ever disputed Queen her legitimacy. In the December of 1694 Mary, 1694, December. Queen Mary was carried off by small-pox after a short illness. She was only in her thirtyGloucester, third year. And on the 30th of July 1700 the young Duke of Gloucester died. Anne was Of Mary Stuart, 1692, June 28. Of the Duke of 1700, July 30. 66 Succession 13 William now childless. She was indeed only in her thirty-sixth year, and might still hope for issue. William, too, might marry again and have children. But it was thought expedient to take New further measures for preserving the crown in the Act, 12 and Protestant line. Accordingly, in 1701, the year III. c. 2. after that in which the young prince died, Parliament passed an Act by which "the most "excellent princess, Sophia, electress and duchess dowager of Hanover, daughter of the most ex"cellent princess, Elizabeth, late Queen of Bohe"mia, daughter of our late sovereign lord, King “James I., of happy memory," was declared to be the next in succession, in the Protestant line, to the crown after King William and the Princess Anne, and failure of issue of William and Anne; and it was enacted that after the deaths of William and Anne, and in case of failure of their issue, the crown should remain to the Princess Sophia and the heirs of her body being Protestants. The clauses in the Act of the first of William and Mary by which persons being Roman Catholics, or marrying Roman Catholics, were incapacitated, were re-enacted, and it was further declared that whoever should thereafter come to the possession of the crown should join in communion with the Church of England as by law established. It concluded with a proud declar |