GEORGE (LOUIS) I., King of Great Britain. After the exclusion of James II. and his son in 16S9, the nearest heirs to the throne in the lineal order of succession were-1, The Princess Mary of Orange, eldest daughter of James IL; 2, the Princess Anne of Denmark, younger daughter of James IL ; 3, William prince of Orange, son of Mary, eldest daughter of Charles L By the declaration of both houses of the convention on the 12th of February 1689, it was resolved that after the decease of the prince and princess of Orange, the crown should descend, first, "to the heirs of the body of the said princess ; and for default of such issue, to the Princess Anne of Denmark, and the heirs of her body ; and for default of each issue, to the heirs of tho body of the said Prince of Orange." This settlement was con firmed in the second session of the first parliament of William and Mary, by the statute 1 W. and 31., a. 2, c. 2, commonly called the Bill of Rights. In the preceding session however, when the Bill of Rights was first brought forward, the king had instructed his ministers to propose a clause for a further limitation of the suc cession, failing heirs of his own body, to the Electress Sophia of Hanover. The electress of Hanover (or, as appears to be the more correct electoral style, of Brunswick and Liineburg), being the youngest of the ten children of Elizabeth, queen of Bohemia, the daughter of James 1., stood in the regular order of inheritance, not only after the deacendants of Henrietta, the younger daughter of Charles I., from whom sprung the royal houses of Savoy, France, and Spain, but also after the descendants of her own elder brothers, Charles Louis, elector palatine, the ancestor of the houses of Orleans and Lorraine, and Edward, through whom the houses of Salm, Ursel, Bourbon, Conty, 3laine, 3lodena, and the Imperial family were brought into the line of succession. All theme families however were Roman Catholics; that of Hanover was the nearest l'rotestant family after the house of Orange. The proposition for the insertion of the name of the Princess Sophia in the bill respecting the settlement of the succession was made, according to the king's desire, in the House of Lords, and adopted there ; but when the bill was sent down to the Commons, the clause was opposed both by the Tory and by the Republican parties, though on opposite principles, and was thrown out in spite of all the exertions of the court. The consequence was, that after the bill had been under discussion for about two months, it was for the present allowed to drop altogether, on the birth (24th of July) to the Princess Anne of a son, William, afterwards proposed to be created Duke of Gloucester (he died before the patent passed the great seal), by which it seemed to be rendered of less pressing importance. When it was brought in again in the following session, the proposition respecting the Princess Sophia was not renewed ; but by a clause excluding Papists, the suc cession, as King William himself expressed it in writing to her on the subject, was " in a manner brought to her door." The death of Queen Mary however (January 1, 1695), and that of the Duke of Glou cester, the last of seventeen children that had been born to the Princess of Denmark (30th of July, 1700), made it extremely desirable that the matter of the succession should no longer remain unsettled. The subject accordingly was strongly recommended to the attention of parliament in the royal speech delivered February 10, 1701. The recommendation was coldly received by the majority of the House of Commons; but at length, by the contrivance, It is said, of the parties opposed to the scheme, the further limitation of the crown to the Electress Sophia and her heirs was formally proposed by Sir John Bowles, "who," says Tindal, "was then disordered in his senses, and soon after quite lost them." It is affirmed that a proposition was now made by several iufluential members of the Upper House to the ambassador of the Duke of Savoy, that that prince should send one of his sons to be educated as a Protestant in England, in which case they gave their assurance that the plan of the Hanoverian succession should be defeated; but the duke would not consent. Meanwhile a bill, founded on the motion of Sir John Bowles, was introduced into the House of Commons ; and although it remained in suspense for many weeks, it was eventually carried through both houses. This is the 12th and 13th Will. III., c. 2, which declares that the crown of England, France, and Ireland, "after his majesty and the Princess Aline of Denmark, and in default of issue of the said Princess Anne and of his majesty respectively," should descend " to the most excellent Princess Sophia, electress and duchess-dowager of Hanover, and the heirs of her body, beiug Protestants." The settlement thus made was further confirmed the next session by the 13th Will. III., c. 6, called the Abjuration Act, from the oath abjuring allegiance to the pretender therein enjoined to be taken and subscribed. The clause imposing this oath was carried in the House of Commons by only one vote ; the Tories, by whom it was opposed, endeavouring to strengthen their cause by insinuations (which were most probably entirely without foundation) that the court now meditated the bringing in of the Hanover family even before the Priucese Anne. Several attempts were made after this to prevail upon the parliament of Scotland to adopt the same settlement for the crown of that kingdom which had thus been established for the English crown ; but they were all in effectual, till the object was at last accomplished in 1706 by the Treaty of Union, the second article of which declared " that the succession to the monarchy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and of the dominions thereunto belonging, after her most sacred majesty, and in default of issue of her majesty, be, remain, and continue to the most excellent Princess Sophia, electress and duchess-dowager of Hanover, and the heirs of her body, being Protestants, upon whom the crown of England is settled" by the act already mentioned. Before this,
by the 4th Anne, c. 1 and 4, the Princess Sophia, "and the issue of her body, and all persons lineally descending from her, born or hereafter to be born," were naturalised, so long as they should not become Papists. By the 4th Anne, c. 8, also, the next Protestant successor to the throne was empowered to name any additional number of persons to act with seven lords-justices appointed in the statute to administer the govern ment between the death of the queen and tho arrival of the said successor in the kingdom. Most of these arrangements were confirmed by various clauses in the 6th Anne, c. 7, entitled `An Act for the Security of Her 3Isjesty's Person and Governmeut, and of the Succes sion to the Crown of Great Britain in tho Protestant Line.' Finally, by the 10th Anne, c. 4, passed in 1711, precedence was given to the Princess Sophia, to " the most serene elector of Brunswick Lunen burg, her eon and heir-apparent, the most noble George Augustus, electoral prince of Hanover and duke of Cambridge, only son of the said most serene elector, and also the heirs of the body of the said most excellent princess, being Protestants, before the Archbishop 5if Canterbury, and all great officers, and the dukes, and all other peers of these realms." The Hanoverian succession was guaranteed by the treaty concluded with the United Provinces of Holland in 1706, by the Barrier Treaty between Great Britain and Holland in 1709, and by the Treaty of Guarantee between the same powers iu 1713 ; and tho vali dity of the settlement was acknowledged by the Treaties of Peace con cluded in the last-mentioned year, at Utrecht, between Great Britain and France, and between Great Britain and Spain. (' General Collec tion of Treaties,' voL L p. 434 ; voL ii. p. 479 ; and vol. iii. pp. 364, 398, and 470.) After the accession of no party so great a zeal for the Hanoverian succession as tho extreme section of the Tories, or Jacobites, whose object, of course, was anything rather than really to support the parliamentary settlement. In 1705, Lord Rochester, one of the heads of this faction, first intimated obscurely in the House of Lords, and more openly among his friends, his intention of proposing that the Electress Sophia should be invited to come over to reside in England. The real object was to irritate the queen, who was known to be strongly averse to the presence of the electress, or indeed of any member of the electoral family in England, and to embarrass the Whigs, who if they assented to it would probably cut themselves off from all chance of favour with the court, of which they were at this time in expectation, while by resisting it they would endanger both their popularity with the nation and also perhaps the confidence of the Hanoverian family. The next session a motion that the heiress presumptive to the throne should be invited over was formally made in the House of Lords by Lord Haversham, but after a warm debate (at which the queen was present), it was rejected by a groat majority. Some years after, in altered circumstances, nearly the same game was attempted to be played by the Whigs, at whose instigation, in April 1713, the Hanoverian resident, Baron Schutz, suddenly made applica tion to the Lord Chancellor Harcourt for a writ of summons to the House of Lords to the Electoral Prince (afterwards George IL), who had been made a British Peer in 1706, by the title of Duke of Cam bridge. This application, and a report which was at tho same time spread that the Duke of Cambridge would in any circumstances immediately come to England, threw the ministry iuto no small per plexity, and so greatly anooyod and Irritated the queen that the forbade Baron Schtils to appear at court. The following year however auother report was spread, that the Princess Sophia intended to solicit per mission from her majesty for tho Electoral Prince to come to England. On this the queen wrote both to the princess, to her sou the elector, and to the Electoral Prince himself, expressing her disapprobation of the project in the strongest terms. These letters may be said to have killed the heiress presumptive; she was so much affected by them, that on the day after their receipt, the 28th of May, she was struck with apoplexy as she was walking iu the gardens of Herenhauseu, and expired in the arms of her daughter. Tho Princess Sophia, who was one of the most accomplished women of her time, was in her eighty fourth year when her life was thus terminated. Queen Anne died on the let of August following, on which George, Elector of Brunswick, the son of the Electreas Sophia, became king of Great Britain.