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The Act of Settlement is an act of the Parliament of England that was passed in 1701 to settle the succession to the English and Irish crowns and thrones on the Electress Sophia of Hanover ( a granddaughter of James I ) and her Protestant heirs.

The act was later extended to Scotland, as a result of the Treaty of Union ( Article II ), enacted in the Acts of Union 1707 before it was ever needed.

Along with the Bill of Rights 1689, it remains today one of the main constitutional laws governing the succession to not only the throne of the United Kingdom, but, following British colonialism, the resultant doctrine of reception, and independence, also to those of the other Commonwealth realms, whether by willing deference to the act as a British statute or as a patriated part of the particular realm's constitution.

Since the implementation of the Statute of Westminster 1931 in each of the Commonwealth realms ( on successive dates from 1931 onwards ), the Act of Settlement cannot be altered in any realm except by that realm's own parliament and, by convention, only with the consent of all the other realms, as it touches on the succession to the shared throne.