having previously insinuated to the populace a suspicion of bastardy in the children of Edward IV., to make a show of some hereditary title; after which he is generally believed to have murdered his two nephews, upon whose death the right of the crown devolved on their sister Elizabeth.

The tyrannical reign of King Richard III. gave occasion to Henry, Earl of Richmond, to assert his title to the crown. A title the most remote and unaccountable that was ever set up, to which nothing could have given success but the universal detestation of the then usurper, Richard. For besides that he claimed under a descent from John of Gant, whose title was now exploded, the claim (such as it was) was through John, Earl of Somerset, a bastard son of John of Gant and Catherine Swinford. It is true that, by an act of Parliament, this son was, with others, legitimated, and made capable of inheriting all lands, offices, and dignities, except the real dignity.

Notwithstanding all this, immediately after the battle of Bosworth Field he assumed the regal dignity, the right of the crown then being in Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edward IV.; and his possession was established by Parliament in the first year of his reign. In the Act for which purpose, the Parliament seems to have copied the caution of their predecessors in the reign of Henry IV., and, therefore, carefully avoided any recognition of Henry VII.'s right: this right, indeed, was none at all, and the king would not have the crown by way of new law or ordinance, whereby a right might seem to be created and conferred upon him, and therefore a middle way was rather chosen by way of establishment, and that under covert, "that the inheritance of the crown should rest, remain, and abide in King Henry VII., and the heirs of his body: thereby providing for the future, and at the same time acknowledging his present possession, but not determining, either way, whether that possession was by right or not, However, he soon after married Elizabeth of York, the

undoubted heiress of the Conqueror, and thereby gained, by much, his best title to the crown.

Henry VIII., the issue of this marriage, succeeded to the throne by clear, indisputable, hereditary right, and transmitted it to his three children in successive order. But in his reign we find the Parliament several times busy in regulating the succession to the kingdom. First, by a statute which recites the nischiefs which have ensued by disputed titles, because no perfect and substantial provision hath been made by law cncerning the succession, and then enacts that the crown sl.all be entailed to his majesty, and his sons or heirs male, an in default of such sons, to the Lady Elizabeth (who is declared to be the king's eldest issue female, in exclusion of the Lady Mary, on account of her supposed illegitimacy by the divorce of her mother, Queen Catherine), and to the Lady Izabeth's heirs, and so on from issue female to issue female and their heirs, by course of inheritance according to their ages, as the crown of England hath been accustomed and ought to go, in case where there be heirs female of the same; and in default of issue female, then to the king's right heirs for ever. This single statute is an ample proof of all the four positions we at first set out with. But upon the king's divorce from Anne Boleyn, this statute was, with regard to the settlement of the crown, repealed by a statute wherein the Lady Elizabeth is also, as well as the Lady Mary, excluded, and the crown settled on the king's children by Queen Jane Seymour and his future wives; and in defect of such children, then with this remarkable remainder-to such persons as the king, by letters patent, or last will and testament, should limit and appoint the same.

A vast power! but, notwithstanding, as it was regularly vested in him by the supreme legislative authority, it was therefore indisputably valid. But this power was never carried into execution; for by statute the king's two daughters are restored to their position, and the crown is limited to Prince

Edward by name, after that to the Lady Mary, and then to the Lady Elizabeth, and their heirs respectively; which succession took effect accordingly, being, indeed, no other than the usual course of the law with regard to the descent of the crown.

On Queen Elizabeth's accession, her right is recognised in still stronger terms than her sister's.

On the death of Queen Elizabeth without issue, the line of Henry VIII. became extinct. It therefore became necessary to recur to the other issue of Henry VII. by Elizabeth of York his queen, whose eldest daughter, Margaret, having married James IV., King of Scotland, King James VI. of Scotland was the lineal descendant from that alliance. So that in his person, as clearly as in Henry VIII., centered all the claims of different competitors, from the Conquest downwards, he being indisputably the lineal heir of the Conqueror. And, what is still more remarkable, in his person also centered the right of the Saxon monarchs, which had been suspended from the Conquest till his accession. For, as was formerly observed, Margaret, the sister of Edgar Atherling, the daughter of Edward the Outlaw, and grand-daughter of King Edmund Ironside, was the person in whom the hereditary right of the Saxon kings, supposing it not abolished by the Conquest, resided. She married Malcolm, King of Scotland; and Henry II., by a descent from Matilda their daughter, is generally called the restorer of the Saxon line. But it must be remembered that Malcolm, by his Saxon queen, had sons as well as daughters; and that the royal family of Scotland from that time downwards were the offspring of Malcolm and Margaret. Of this royal family King James I., of England, was the direct lineal heir, and therefore united in his person every possible claim by hereditary right to the English as well as Scottish throne, being the heir both of Egbert and William the Conqueror.

It is astonishing that when so many human hereditary

rights had centered in this king, his son and heir, King Charles I., should be told by those infamous judges, who pronounced his unparalleled sentence, that he was an elective prince-elected by his people, and therefore accountable to them, in his own proper person, for his conduct. The confusion, instability, and madness which followed the fatal catastrophe of that unfortunate prince, will be a standing argument in favour of hereditary monarchy to all future ages: as they proved at last to the then deluded people, who, in order to recover that peace and happiness which for twenty years together they had lost, in a solemn parliamentary convention of the States restored the right heir of the crown. And in the proclamation for that purpose, which was drawn up and attended by both houses, they declared, "that, according to their duty and allegiance, they did heartily, joyfully, and unanimously acknowledge and proclaim that immediately upon the decease of our late sovereign Lord, King Charles, the imperial crown of these realms did by inherent birthright, and lawful and undoubted succession, descend and come to his most excellent majesty Charles II., as being lineally, justly, and lawfully next heir of the blood royal of this realm; and thereunto they most humbly and faithfully did submit and oblige themselves, their heirs, and posterity for ever."

Thus it clearly appears that the crown of England has been ever an hereditary crown, though subject to limitations by Parliament.

The first instance, in point of time, of the Parliament altering or limiting the succession, is the famous Bill of Exclusion, which raised such a ferment in the latter end of the reign of Charles II. It is well known that the purport of this bill was to have set aside the king's brother and presumptive heir, the Duke of York, from the succession, on the score of his being a Papist; that it passed the House of Commons, but was rejected by the Lords; the king having

also declared beforehand that he never would be brought to consent to it. And from this transaction we may collect two things: 1. That the crown was universally acknowledged to be hereditary, and the inheritance indefeasible unless by Parliament; else it would have been needless to prefer such a bill. 2. That the Parliament had a power to have set aside the inheritance; else such a bill would have been ineffectual. The Commons acknowledged the hereditary right then subsisting; and the Lords did not dispute the power, but merely the propriety of an exclusion. However, as the bill took no effect, James II. succeeded to the throne of his ancestors, and might have enjoyed it during the remainder of his life but for his own infatuated conduct, which (with other concurring circumstances) brought on the Revolution in 1688.

The true ground and principle, upon which that memorable event proceeded, was an entirely new case in politics, which had never before happened in our history—the abdication of the reigning monarch, and the vacancy of the throne thereupon.

The Revolution was not a destruction of the right of succession, and a new limitation of the crown, by the King and both Houses of Parliament; it was the act of the nation alone, upon a conviction that there was no king in existence. For in a full assembly of the Lords and Commons, met in a convention upon the supposition of this vacancy, both houses came to this resolution: That King James II., having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of the kingdom, by breaking the original contract between king and people, and having violated the fundamental laws; and having withdrawn himself out of this kingdom; has abdicated the government, and the throne is thereby vacant. Thus ended at once, by this sudden and unexpected vacancy of the throne, the old line of succession, which from the Conquest had lasted above six hundred years, and, from the union of the heptarchy in king Egbert, almost nine hundred.