which sex the crown defcends: the perfon entitled to it, whether male or female, is immediately invefted with all the enfigns, rights, and prerogatives of fovereign power.

The grand fundamental maxim upon which the right of fucceffion to the throne of thefe kingdoms depends, is: "that the crown, by common law and conftitutional cuftom, is hereditary; and this in a manner peculiar to itself: but that the right of inheritance may from time to time be changed or limited by act of parliament: under which limitations the crown ftill continues hereditary."

King Egbert, king Canute, and king William I. have been fucceffively conftituted the common stocks, or ancestors, of this descent.

On the death of queen Elizabeth, without iffue, the line of Henry VIII. became extinct. It therefore became neceffary to recur to the other iffue of Henry VII. by Elizabeth of York his queen: whose eldeft daughter Margaret having married James IV. king of Scotland, king James the Sixth of Scotland, and of England the Firft, was the lineal defcendant from that alliance. So that in his perfon, as clearly as in Henry VIII. centered all the claims of the different competitors from the conqueft downward; he being indifput bly the lineal heir of the conqueror. And, what is ftill more remarkable, in his perfon alfo centered the right of the Saxon monarchs, which had been fufpended from the conqueft till his acceffion. For, Margaret the fifter of Edgar Atheling, the daughter of Edward the Outlaw, and granddaughter of king Edmund Ironfide, was the perfon in whom the hereditary right of the Saxon kings, fuppofing it not abolished by the conqueft, resided. married Malcolm king of Scotland; and Henry II. by a defcent from Matilda their daughter, is generallyalled the reftorer of the Saxon line. But it must be remembered, that Malcolm by his Saxon queen had fons as well as daughters; and that the

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royal family of Scotland, from that time downward, were the offspring of Malcolm and Margaret. Of this royal family king James I. was the direct lineal defcendant; and therefore united in his perfon every poffible claim, by hereditary right, to the English as well as Scottish throne, being the heir both of Egbert and William the Conqueror.

At the rev larion, the convention of eftates, or reprefenta ive body of the nation, declared, that the miconduct of king James II. amounted to an abdication of the government, and that the throne was

Tacant.

La confeque¢ of this vacancy, and from a resard to the on int line, the convention appointed th xt Proteftant heirs of the blood royal of king Charles I. to fill the vacant throne, in the cl. order ccreffion; with a temporary exception, or prefence, to the perfon of king William III.

en the impending failure of the roteftant line of King Charles I. (whereby the throne might again have become vacant) the king and parliament extended the fettlement of the crown to the Proteftant line of King James I. viz. to the princefs Sophia of Hanover, and the heirs of her body, being Proteftants: and fhe is now the common ftock, from whom the heirs of the crown muft defcend.

The true ground and principle, upon which the revolution proceeded, was an entirely new cafe in politics, which had never before happened in our hiftory; the abdication of the reigning monarch, and the vacancy of the throne thereupon. It was not a defeazance of the right of fucceffion, and a new limitation of the crown, by the king and both houfes of parliament: it was the act of the nation alone, upon a conviction that there was no king in being. For in a full affembly of the lords and commons, met in convention upon the fuppofition of this vacancy, both houfes came to this refolution;

that

"that king James II. having endeavoured to fubvert the constitution of the kingdom, by breaking the original contract between king and people; and, by the advice of jefuits and other wicked perfons, having violated the fundamental laws; and having withdrawn himself out of this kingdom; has abdicated the government, and that the throne is thereby vacant." Thus ended at once, by this fudden and unexpected vacancy of the throne, the old line of fucceffion; which from the conqueft had lafted above 600 years, and from the union of the heptarchy in king Egbert, almost 900.

Though in fome points (owing to the peculiar circumstances of things and perfons) the revolution was not altogether fo perfect as might have been wifhed; yet from thence a new æra commenced, in which the bounds of prerogative and liberty have been better defined, the principles of government more thoroughly examined and understood, and the rights of the fubject more explicitly guarded by legal provifions, than in any other period of the Englifh hiftory. In particular, it is worthy obfervation, that the convention, in this their judgment, avoided with great wisdom the wild extreams into which the vifionary theories of fome zealous republicans would have led them. They held that this mifconduct of king James amounted to an endeavour to fubv: rt the constitution, and not to an actual fubverfion, or total diffolution of the government. They therefore very prudently voted it to amount to no more than an abdication of the government, and a confequent vacancy of the throne; whereby the government was allowed to fubfift, though the executive magiftrate was gone; and the kingly office to remain, though king James was no longer king And thus the conftitution was kept intire; which upon every found principle of government must otherwise have fallen to pieces, had fo principal and conftituent a

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part as the royal authority been abolished, or even fufpended *.

Hence it is eafy to collect, that the title to the crown is at prefent hereditary, though not quite fo abfolutely hereditary as formerly; and the common ftock or ancestor, from whom the defcent must be derived, is also different. Formerly the common ftock was king Egbert; then William the Conqueror; afterward in James the Firft's time the two common stocks united, and fo continued till the vacancy of the throne in 1688: now it is the princess Sophia, in whom the inheritance was vefted by the new king and parliament. Formerly the defcent was abfolute, and the crown went to the next heir without any re

The conftitution of England, fays Dr. Smollet, had now affumed a new aspect. The maxim of hereditary, indefeasible right, was at length renounced by a free parliament. The power of the crown was acknowledged to flow from no other fountain than that of a contract with the people. Allegiance and protection were declared reciprocal ties depending upon each other, The reprefentatives of the nation made a regular claim of rights in behalf of their conftituents; and William III. afcended the throne in confequence of an exprefs capitulation with the people. Yet, on this occafion, the parliament, toward their deliverer, feems to have overhot their attachment to their own liberty and privileges: or, at least, they neglected the faireft opportunity that ever occurred, to retrench thofe prerogatives of the crown to which they imputed all the late and former calamities of the kingdom. Their new monarch retained the old regal power over parliaments, in its full extent: he was at liberty to convoke, adjourn, prorogue, and diffolve them at his pleafure; he was enabled to influence elections, and opprefs corporations: he poffeffed the right of chufing his own council; of nominating all the great officers of the ftate, and of the houshold, of the army, the navy, and the church. He referved the abfolute command of the militia: fo that he remained master of all the inftruments and engines of corruption and violence, without any other restraint than his own moderation, and prudent regard to the claim of rights and principle of refiftance on which the revolution was founded. In a word, the fettlement was finished with, fome precipitation, before the plan had been properly digefted and matured; and this will be the cafe in every eftablishment, formed upon a fudden emergency in the face of op. pofition.

ftriction:

ftriction: but now, upon the new fettlement, the inheritance is conditional, being limited to fuch heirs only, of the body of the princefs Sophia, as are Protestant members of the church of England, and are married to none but Proteftants.

And in this due medium confifts the true conftitutional notion of the right of fucceffion to the imperial crown of thefe kingdoms. The extreams, between which it fteers, are each of them equally deftructive of thofe ends for which focieties were formed and are kept on foot." Where the magiftrate, upon every fucceffion, is elected by the people, and may by the exprefs provifion of the laws be depofed (if not punished) by his fubjects, this may found like the perfection of liberty, and look well enough when delineated on paper; but in practice will be ever productive of tumult, contention, and anarchy. And, on the other hand, divine indefeasible hereditary right, when coupled with the doctrine of unlimited paffive obedience, is furely of all conftitutions the most thoroughly flavish and dreadful. But when fuch an hereditary right, as our laws have created and vested in the royal ftock, is closely interwoven with those liberties, which are equally the inheritance of the fubject; this union will form a conftitution, in theory the most beautiful of any, in practice the most approved, and, in all probability, will prove in duration the moft permanent. This conftitution, it is the duty of every good Englishman to understand, to revere, and to defend.

The principal duties of the king are expreffed in his oath at the coronation, which is administered by one of the archbishops, or bishops of the realm, in the presence of all the people; who on their parts. do reciprocally take the oath of allegiance to the crown. This coronation oath is conceived in the

following terms:

"The archbishop or bishop fhall fay, Will you foflemnly promife and fwear to govern the people

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