Stockmar, Baron, and his influence with the Commons, 127; his secret 25, 26, 30 6 5 T. Thackeray 10-12, 15, 21, 22, 27, 41, 63, 76, 99, 117 Thurlow, and the Regency Bill, 69; Supports the Slave Trade 76, 77, 78 Treason High, Charge of, against Horne Tooke, and others 74, 75 Vaughan, George, Examination of.. Victoria, Queen, born, 103; Accession, 126; Marriage, 126; Influence in Weavers Distress and attempt at Combination, 53; wages 88-90 63, 64, 65-68 . 19, 51 105 119, 120 Whigs, The, their action with Stuarts and Guelphs, 2; favored by the Georges, 13; their infringement of public liberty, 14, 15; augmen- Wilkes John, References to PAGE 118; symptoms of insanity, 124; popular opinion, 123; vice, 8, 125 Y. York, Frederick Duke of, born, 48; filial conduct, 69, 70: scoundrelism, Yorkshire Petition, The .. 114 58 THE IMPEACHMENT OF THE HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. By statutes I William and Mary, sess. 2, cap. 2, 12 and 13 William III, cap. 2, and 6 Anne, cap. II, 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. Mr. J. Fitzgerald Molloy (who in his "Court Life below Stairs" has often availed himself of the earlier editions of the present work, but who has never thought right to refer to my pages as his source of information) says that the election of George 1st "as king was solely founded on the choice of the majority of Parliament; the reason for which was because he professed the Protestant religion. Admitting the male line of the House of Stuart to have ended B in James II, the right of blood' rested in the House of Savoy, through Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, daughter of Charles I, so that more than fifty persons, whose claims were nearer than that of the Elector, were quietly passed over." 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 enact that after the death or abdication of her present Majesty, the throne shall no longer be filled by a member of the House of Brunswick, such an enactment would be perfectly within the competency of Parliament. It is further submitted that Parliament has full and uncontrollable authority to make any enactment, and to repeal any enactment heretofore made even if such new statute, or the repeal of any old statute should in truth change the constitution of the Empire, or modify the character and powers of either Parliamentary Chamber. The Parliament of the English Commonwealth, which met on April 25th, 1660, gave the crown to Charles II, and the Parliament of the British Monarchy has the undoubted right to withhold the crown from Albert Edward Prince of Wales. The convention which assembled at Westminster on January 22nd, 1688, took away the crown from James II, and passed over his son, the then Prince of Wales, as if he had been non existent. This convention was declared to have all the authority of Parliament-ergo, Parliament has admittedly the right to deprive a living king of his crown, and to treat a Prince of Wales as having no claim to the succession. In fact two clauses of sec. 3 of the Act of Settlement were repealed in the reign of Queen Anne, 4 and 5 Anne c. 20, a third clause was repealed early in the reign of George I (1 Geo. I, stat. 2 c. 51), and a fourth clause was partly repealed by 7 and 8 Vict. c. 66, and virtually repealed as to a class by 33 Vict. c. 14 § 7, showing that this particular statute has never been considered immutable or irrepealable. It is true that the clauses repealed were only of consequence to the nation, and that their repeal was no injury to the Crown. The unbounded right of the supreme Legislature to enlarge its own powers was contended for and admitted in 1716, when the duration of Parliament was extended four years, a triennial Parliament declaring itself and all future Parliaments septennial. It has been held to be sedition to deny the complete authority of the Irish Parliament to put an end to its own existence. It has been admitted to be within the jurisdiction of Parliament to give electoral privileges to citizens heretofore unenfranchised; Parliament claims the unquestioned right to disfranchise persons, hitherto electors, for misconduct in the exercise of electoral rights, and in its pleasure to remove and annul any electoral disability. The right of Parliament to decrease or increase the number of representatives for any borough, or to deprive a borough of its right to return members, or to create new boroughs, has never been disputed, and its authority to decrease the number of Peers sitting and voting in the House of Lords was recognised in passing the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill, by which several Bishops were summarily ejected from amongst the Peers. It is now submitted that Parliament possesses no legislative right but that which it B |