Act of Settlement 1701

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Image:Sophia of Hanover.jpg The Act of Settlement (12 & 13 Wm 3 c.2) was an Act of the Parliament of England. It is the main Act of Parliament that governs the line of succession to the British throne and the thrones of the other Commonwealth Realms. The Act was originally passed by the Parliament of England and was later extended to Scotland by the terms of the Acts of Union 1707.

Since the patriation of each Commonwealth Realm's constitution from the UK, it now performs the same task within those states. As such, the Act remains a key part of the constitutions of the United Kingdom and of the other Commonwealth Realms.

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Background

Originally an Act of the Parliament of England, it was passed in 1701Template:Note during the reign of King William III. As the King was childless, and his wife Mary II had died in 1694, the throne would pass to Mary's sister, Princess Anne on the King's death. However Anne's last surviving child, William, Duke of Gloucester died in 1700, and it was unlikely she would ever have any more children. Under the Bill of Rights 1689, the line of succession was limited to the descendants of Mary II and Anne, thus there was a need for a new law to allow the succession to continue in the Protestant line, and to exclude the deposed James II and his son, James Francis Edward Stuart.

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Provisions of the Act

The Act provided that the throne would pass to the Electress Sophia of Hanover, a granddaughter of James I/VI, and her descendants. Only the descendants of Sophia who were Protestant, and had not married a Catholic could succeed the throne. In addition, it specifies that it is for parliamentary legislation to determine who should succeed to the throne, not the monarch.

An effect of the Act is to make succession automatic and immediate: it does not depend on or wait for proclamation by the Privy Council.

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Act of Union

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 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.

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Present debate

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.

In Canada, where the Act of Settlement is now a part of Canadian constitutional law, Tony O'Donohue, a Canadian civic politician, observed that the Act of Settlement 1701 explicitly excludes Roman Catholics from the throne and the Queen is Supreme Governor of the Church of England, requiring her to be an Anglican. This, he claimed, discriminates against non-Anglicans, including Catholics who are the largest faith group in Canada. In 2002, O'Donohue launched an ultimately unsuccessful court action that argued the Act of Settlement violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. His case was dismissed by the court, which found that as the Act of Settlement is part of the Canadian constitution, the Charter of Rights does not have supremacy over it. Also, the court pointed out that while Canada has the power to amend the line of succession to the Canadian Throne, the Statute of Westminster stipulates that the agreement of the governments of the fifteen other realms that share the Crown would first have to be sought if Canada wished to continue its relationship with the other Commonwealth Realms. An appeal of the decision was dismissed 16 March, 2005. (See O'Donohue v. Her Majesty the Queen, 2003)

As alluded to above, 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, either directly or as a now separate, patriated law, 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.

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Notes

  1. Template:Note This Act is sometimes known as the Act of Settlement 1700, not because of the change from Julian to Gregorian calendars (the Act was passed in June 1701), but because before 1793, Acts of Parliament came into force on the first day of the session on which Parliament sat, which was in 1700.


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See also

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External links

de:Act of Settlement it:Act of Settlement ja:王位継承法 ru:Акт о престолонаследии (Великобритания) fi:Ison-Britannian vallanperimyslaki

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