Act of Settlement 1701
The Act of Settlement (12 & 13 Wm 3 c.2) is a piece of English legislation governing the succession to the English Crown. It was passed in 1701 (1700 in Old Style dates) to amend the English Bill of Rights, following the death of the last child of the then Princess Anne. It provides that (in default of any further heirs of William III of England or Princess Anne) only Protestant descendants of Sophia, dowager Electress and dowager Duchess of Hanover who have not married a Roman Catholic can succeed to the English Crown. In addition, it specifies that it is for Parliament to determine who should succeed to the throne, not the monarch.
This Act was, in many ways, the major cause of the Union of Scotland with England and Wales to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Parliament of Scotland was not happy with the Act of Settlement and, in response, passed the Act of Security in 1704, which gave Scotland the right to choose their own successor to Queen Anne.
As a result, the Parliament of England decided that full union of the two Parliaments and nations was essential before Anne's death, and used a combination of exclusionary legislation (the Alien Act of 1705), politics, and bribery to achieve it within three years under the Act of Union 1707. This was in marked contrast to the four attempts at political union between 1606 and 1689, which all failed owing to a lack of political will. By virtue of Article II of the Treaty of Union, which defined the succession to the British Crown, the Act of Settlement became, in effect, also part of Scots Law.
Sophia died before Anne, so the result of the Act was the succession of Sophia's son George as King George I, in preference to many of his cousins.
As a result of the Act of Settlement, several members of the British Royal Family who have converted to Roman Catholicism or married Roman Catholics have been barred from succeeding to the Crown, though since George I no individual has actually been excluded from the throne on the grounds of religion.
From time to time there has been debate over removing the clause that keeps Roman Catholics or those who marry Catholics from ascending to the throne. Proponents argue that the clause is a bigoted anachronism and Cardinal Winning, who was leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, called the act an 'insult' to Catholics. Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, the leader of the Catholic Church in England, pointed out that Prince William, "can marry by law a Hindu, a Buddhist, anyone, but not a Roman Catholic."[1] Opponents feel that repeal could lead to a Catholic assuming the throne, and could lead to the disestablishment of the Church of England as the state religion. They also point to the fact that the monarch must swear to defend the faith and be a member of the Anglican Communion and that a Catholic monarch would, like all Catholics, owe allegiance to the Pope which would, according to opponents of repeal such as Enoch Powell and Adrian Hilton, amount to a loss of sovereignty.
There are also significant difficulties presented by the fact that the Act of Settlement regulates the succession of all the Commonwealth Realms of which the Queen is Sovereign, and a change in the United Kingdom would not automatically apply elsewhere - where the Act would be unchanged. This could easily result in the succession being different in certain countries, and a division of the Crown could result. In the 2005 British general election campaign Michael Howard promised to work towards having that prohibition removed if the Conservative party gained a majority of seats in the House of Commons. In the event, the election was won by Tony Blair's Labour party, who have made no moves to change this law.
See also
External links
- Royal Family web page on succession
- Text of Act of Settlement 1701 - Guardian
- Text of Act of Settlement 1700 - Australian Capital Territory Government Gives full preamble and long title.