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BackgroundOriginally an Act of the Parliament of England, it was passed in 1701[1] 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. Provisions of the Act
Also, eight provisions were included in the Act that would only come into effect when both King William and Princess Anne were dead. These were:
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. For these reasons various constitutionalists have praised the Act of Settlement. Henry Hallam called the Act "the seal of our constitutional laws" and David Lindsay Keir placed its importance above the Bill of Rights 1689.[4] Naamani Tarkow has written: "If one is to make sweeping statements, one may say that, save Magna Carta (more truly, its implications), the Act of Settlement is probably the most significant statute in English history".[5] Act of Union
As a result, the Parliament of England decided that to ensure the stability and future prosperity of Great Britain, 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 in both kingdoms. 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 as well. 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. Current effectsSince the passing of the Act, the most senior royal to have married a Roman Catholic and subsequently be removed from the line of succession is Prince Michael of Kent, who married Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz in 1978. Prince Michael of Kent was 15th in the line of succession at the time of his marriage. The current most senior living descendant of the Electress Sophia who is ineligible to succeed due to the Act is George Windsor, Earl of St Andrews, the eldest son of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, who married the Roman Catholic Sylvana Palma Tomaselli in 1988. He would be 23rd in the line of succession if he had not lost his place. His son, Lord Downpatrick converted to Roman Catholicism in 2003, and is the most senior descendant to be barred due to being a Catholic himself. Only one member of the Royal Family (ie with the style Royal Highness) has converted to Roman Catholicism since the passing of the Act- The Duchess of Kent, wife of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent. The Duchess converted to Roman Catholicism on January 14, 1994. Her husband, the Duke, did not lose his place in the line of succession as the Duchess was an Anglican at the time of their marriage. 1936 abdicationUnder the Act, the senior descendant of the Electress Sophia is automatically sovereign, whether they wish to be or not. Thus, during the abdication crisis in 1936 caused by King Edward VIII's desire to marry Wallis Simpson, a new Act of Parliament was required throughout the Commonwealth Realms. In the United Kingdom His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act 1936 was passed, allowing the King to abdicate, and ensured the line of succession would pass to the next senior descendant of Sophia, Prince Albert, Duke of York. Parallel to this, the Canadian Parliament passed the Succession to the Throne Act (1 Geo. VI, c.16), ensuring that the line of succession in Canada remained the same as that in the other Realms. Any future issue of King Edward VIII, who would be senior in descent under the Act of Settlement, were excluded from succession. Present debateFrom time to time there has been debate over repealing the clause that keeps Roman Catholics or those who marry Roman Catholics from ascending to the throne. Proponents of repeal 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 Roman 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 of repeal, such as Enoch Powell and Adrian Hilton, feel that it would lead to the disestablishment of the Church of England as the state religion if a Roman Catholic were to assume the throne. They also point to the fact that the monarch must swear to defend the faith and be a member of the Anglican Communion, but that a Roman Catholic monarch would, like all Roman Catholics, owe allegiance to the Pope. This would, according to opponents of repeal, amount to a loss of sovereignty. Hilton, writing in The Spectator in 2003, defended the Act of Settlement as not "irrational prejudice or blind bigotry" but claims that it was passed because "the nation had learnt that when a Roman Catholic monarch is upon the throne, religious and civil liberty is lost". He points to the fact that the Pope claims universal jurisdiction and he therefore argues that "it would be intolerable to have, as the sovereign of a Protestant and free country, one who owes any allegiance to the head of any other state" and contends that if such situation came about "we will have undone centuries of common law". He further asserts that because the Roman Catholic Church does not recognise the Church of England as a proper church, a Roman Catholic monarch who abided by their faith's doctrine would be obliged to view Anglican and Church of Scotland archbishops, bishops and clergy as part of the laity and therefore "lacking the ordained authority to preach and celebrate the sacraments". Hilton also claims a Roman Catholic monarch would therefore be unable to be crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury. He also points to the examples of European states which have similar religious provisions for their monarchs: Denmark, Norway and Sweden—whose constitutions compel their monarchs to be Lutherans—and the Netherlands' constitution which insists their monarchs be through the Protestant House of Orange, and also the Spanish and Belgian constitutions which include provisions for the succession through Roman Catholic houses.[2] When in December 1978 there was media speculation that Charles, Prince of Wales might marry a Roman Catholic, Enoch Powell defended the provision that excludes Roman Catholics from ascending the throne. Powell claimed his objection was not rooted in religious bigotry but from political considerations. He claimed a Catholic monarch would involve acceptance of a source of authority external to the realm and "in the literal sense, foreign to the Crown in Parliament...Between Roman Catholicism and royal supremacy there is, as St Thomas More concluded, no reconciliation". Powell concluded that a "Roman Catholic Crown" would be the destruction of the Church of England because "it would contradict the essential character of that church": When Thomas Hobbes wrote that "the Papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof", he was promulgating an enormously important truth. Authority in the Roman Church is the exertion of that imperium from which England in the 16th century finally and decisively declared its national independence as the alter imperium, the "other empire", of which Henry VIII declared "This realm of England is an empire"...It would signal the beginning of the end of the British monarchy. It would portend the eventual surrender of everything that has made us, and keeps us still, a nation.[6] 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 on 16 March, 2005. (See O'Donohue v. Canada) 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 any event, the election was won by Tony Blair's Labour party, who have made no moves to change this law. As the current sovereign is a woman, who has reigned for over 50 years, and both her eldest child, and in turn his eldest child, are Anglican males, any move to 'modernise' the rules of succession, by removing the preference for males or the discrimination against Roman Catholics, would currently have no practical implications; combined with the problems of changing the laws (separate legislation in numerous Commonwealth countries), this has led to little public concern with the issue. However, Prince William fathering a daughter (see the case of Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden), or, even more so, expressing a desire to marry a woman who happened to be Catholic, could significantly revive moves to alter the law. Notes
References
See also
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