BY 1823 CHARLES BRADLAUGH. THE IMPEACHMENT OF THE HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK. CROMWELL AND WASHINGTON. THE LAND, THE PEOPLE, AND THE COMING STRUGGLE. LONDON: FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 63, FLEET STREET, E.C. 1887. Price Two Shillings and Sixpence. SIR H. D. WOLFF, AS SOME ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THEIR EFFECTUAL ADVERTISEMENT OF THE SIXTH, SEVENTH AND EIGHTH EDITIONS. Ref.-st. 1849 67405 THE IMPEACHMENT OF 565 B7 A4 THE HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. By statutes 1 William and Mary, cap. 2, 12 and 13 William III., cap. 2, and 6 Anne, cap. 11, article 2, the British Parliament, limiting the Monarchy to members of the Church of England, excluded the Stuarts, and from and after the death of King William and the Princess Anne without heirs, contrived that the Crown of this kingdom should devolve upon the Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, and the heirs of her body, being Protestants. Heirs failing to Anne, although she was seventeen times pregnant, and Sophia dying about seven weeks before Anne, George, Elector of Hanover, succeeded under these Acts as George I. of England, France, Scotland, and Ireland. The official delusion that our monarchs ruled also over France was kept up until the commencement of the present century. It is said, and perhaps truly, that the German Protestant Guelph was an improvement on the Catholic Stuart, and the Whigs take credit for having effected this change in spite of the Tories. This credit they deserve; but it must not be forgotten that scarcely half a century before the entire aristocracy, including the patriotic Whigs, had coalesced to restore to the throne the Stuarts, who had been driven away by Cromwell. If this very aristocracy, of which the Whigs form a part, had never assisted in calling back the Stuarts in the person of Charles II., there would have been no need to thank them for again turning that family out. The object of this essay is to submit reasons for the repeal of the Acts of Settlement and Union, so far as the succession to the throne is concerned, after the abdication or demise of the present monarch. It is assumed, as a point upon which all supporters of the present royal family will agree, that the right to deal with the throne is inalienably vested in the English people, to be exercised by them through their representatives in Parliament. The right of the members of the House of Brunswick to succeed to the throne is a right accruing only from the Acts of Settlement and Union, it being clear that, except for these statutes, they had no claim to the throne. It is therefore submitted that should Parliament in its wisdom think fit to |