ACT OF SETTLEMENT, a name given to the statute 12 and 13 Will. III. c. 2, by which the crown was limited to the family of her present majesty, queen Victoria. It was towards the end of king William III. 's reign, when all hopes of other issue died with the duke of Gloucester, that, as we are told by Blackstone, the king and parliament thought it necessary again to exert their power of limiting and appointing the succession, in order to prevent another vacancy of the throne, which must have ensued upon their deaths, as no further provision was made at the revolution than for the issue of queen Mary, queen Anne, and king William. The parliament had previously, by the statute of 1 W. and M. st. 2, c. 2, enacted, that every person who should be reconciled to or hold com munion with the see of Rome, should profess the Roman Catholic religion, or should marry a Roman Catholic, should be excluded from succession to, and be forever incapable to inherit, possess, or enjoy the crown; and that in such case the people should be absolved from their allegiance, and the crown should descend to such persons, being Protestants, as would have inherited the same, if the person so reconciled, holding com munion, professing or marrying, were naturally dead. To act, therefore, consistently with themselves, and, at the same time, pay as much regard to the old hereditary line as their former resolutions would admit, they turned their eyes on the princess Sophia, electress and duchess-dowager of Hanover; for upon the impending extinction of the Protestant posterity of Charles I., the old law of regal descent directed 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 who was not incapacitated by professing the Roman Catholic 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 statute 12 and 13 Will. III. c. 2. And at the same time it was enacted that whosoever should thereafter come to the possession of the crown, should join in the communion of the church of England as by law established.
This is the last limitation of the crown that has been made by parliament; and the several actual limitations, from the time of Henry IV. to the present, clearly prove the power of the king and parliament to remodel or alter the succession. It is even made highly penal to dispute such power, for by the statute 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 by only preaching or advised speaking, he shall incur the penalties of preenrunire.
The Princess Sophia dying before queen Anne, the inheritance, thus limited, descended on her son and heir, king George I.; and having, on the death of the queen, taken effect in his person, from him it descended to king George II.; from him to his grandson and heir, king OcorgeHL; from kira to his son George IN.,- who was succeeded by his brother, William IV.; and from the monarch last mentioned The crown descended to his heiress, the daughter of his brother Edward, duke of Kent, our present gracious sovereign queen Victoria.
"Hence," Blackstone remarks, "it is easy to collect that the title to the crown is at present hereditary, though not quite so absolutely hereditary as formerly; and the com mon stock or ancestor from whom the descent must be derived is also different. For merly, the common stock was king Egbert, afterwards William the conqueror, and now it is princess Sophia, in whom the inheritance was vested by the new king and parlia ment. Formerly, the descent was absolute, and the crown went to the next heir with out any restriction; but now, upon the new settlement, the inheritance is conditional; being limited to such heirs only of the body of the princess Sophia as are Protestants, members of the church of England, and are married to none but Protestants."