This settlement
included all the protestant posterity of king Charles I, except such
other issue as king James might at any time have, which was totally
omitted through fear of a popish succession. And this order of
succession took effect accordingly.

THESE three princes therefore, king William, queen Mary, and queen
Anne, did not take the crown by hereditary right or _descent_, but by
way of donation or _purchase_, as the lawyers call it; by which they
mean any method of acquiring an estate otherwise than by descent. The
new settlement did not merely consist in excluding king James, and the
person pretended to be prince of Wales, and then suffering the crown
to descend in the old hereditary chanel: for the usual course of
descent was in some instances broken through; and yet the convention
still kept it in their eye, and paid a great, though not total, regard
to it. Let us see how the succession would have stood, if no
abdication had happened, and king James had left no other issue than
his two daughters queen Mary and queen Anne. It would have stood thus:
queen Mary and her issue; queen Anne and her issue; king William and
his issue. But we may remember, that queen Mary was only nominally
queen, jointly with her husband king William, who alone had the regal
power; and king William was absolutely preferred to queen Anne, though
his issue was postponed to hers. Clearly therefore these princes were
successively in possession of the crown by a title different from the
usual course of descent.

IT was towards the end of king William's reign, when all hopes of any
surviving issue from any of these princes died with the duke of
Glocester, that the king and parliament thought it necessary again to
exert their power of limiting and appointing the succession, in order
to prevent another vacancy of the throne; which must have ensued upon
their deaths, as no farther provision was made at the revolution, than
for the issue of king William, queen Mary, and queen Anne. The
parliament had previously by the statute of 1 W. & M. st. 2. c. 2.
enacted, that every person who should be reconciled to, or hold
communion with, the see of Rome, should profess the popish religion,
or should marry a papist, should be excluded and for ever incapable to
inherit, possess, or enjoy, the crown; and that in such case the
people should be absolved from their allegiance, and the crown should
descend to such persons, being protestants, as would have i