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.

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.

The Act of Settlement was thus passed and granted Royal Assent in 1701.

The Act of Settlement provided that the throne would pass to the Electress Sophia of Hanover – a granddaughter of James VI of Scotland and I of England, niece of Charles I of Scotland and England – and her Protestant descendants who had not married a Roman Catholic ; those who were Roman Catholic, and those who married a Roman Catholic, were barred from ascending the throne " for ever ".

For different reasons, various constitutionalists have praised the Act of Settlement: Henry Hallam called the act in the United Kingdom " the seal of our constitutional laws " and David Lindsay Keir placed its importance above the Bill of Rights 1689.

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 ".

The original Act of Settlement

The Act of Settlement was, in many ways, the major cause of the union of Scotland with England and Wales to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.

The Parliament of Scotland was not happy with the Act of Settlement and, in response, passed the Act of Security in 1704, through which Scotland reserved the right to choose its own successor to Queen Anne.

By virtue of Article II of the Treaty of Union, which defined the succession to the throne of Great Britain, the Act of Settlement became part of Scots Law as well.

Since the passage of the Act of Settlement, the most senior member of the Royal Family to have married a Roman Catholic, and thereby been removed from the line and later lines of succession, is Prince Michael of Kent, who married Baroness Marie-Christine von Reibnitz in 1978 ; he was fifteenth in the lines of succession at the time of his marriage.

Under the Act of Settlement, male-preference primogeniture succession of an Anglican legitimate descendant of the Electress Sophia is automatic and immediate, neither depending on, nor waiting for, any proclamation.

In the Australian Capital Territory, the Act of Settlement was, on 11 May 1989, converted, from an act of the Parliament of England into an ACT enactment, by section 34 ( 4 ) of the Australian Capital Territory ( Self-Government ) Act 1988 ( Cwlth ), and then renamed The Act of Settlement 1700 by the Legislation Act 2001.

Challenges have been made against the Act of Settlement, especially its provisions regarding Roman Catholics and preference for males.

It was reported in October 2011 that the Australian federal government had reached an agreement with all of the states on potential changes to their laws in the wake of amendments to the Act of Settlement.

Canadian scholar Richard Toporoski theorised in 1998 that " if, let us say, an alteration were to be made in the United Kingdom to the Act of Settlement 1701, providing for the succession of the Crown ... t is my opinion that the domestic constitutional law of Australia or Papua New Guinea, for example, would provide for the succession in those countries of the same person who became Sovereign of the United Kingdom.

In Canada, where the Act of Settlement is now a part of Canadian constitutional law, Tony O ' Donohue, a Canadian civic politician, took issue with the provisions that exclude Roman Catholics from the throne, and which make the monarch of Canada the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, requiring him or her to be an Anglican.

In Britain, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 led to a constitutional monarchy restricted by laws such as the Bill of Rights 1689 and the Act of Settlement 1701, although limits on the power of the monarch (' a limited monarchy ') are much older than that ( see Magna Carta ).

# Constitutional entrenchment of an otherwise statutory English, British, or Canadian document because of subject matter provisions in the amending formula of the Constitution Act, 1982, such as provisions with regard to the monarchy in the English Bill of Rights 1689 or the Act of Settlement 1701.

Rather than return to her Roman Catholic brother James Francis Edward Stuart, the English Parliament decided that Sophia of Hanover and her descendants should succeed ( Act of Settlement 1701 ).

In a 2005 speech, Lord Woolf described it as " first of a series of instruments that now are recognised as having a special constitutional status ", the others being the Habeas Corpus Act ( 1679 ), the Petition of Right ( 1628 ), the Bill of Rights ( 1689 ), and the Act of Settlement ( 1701 ).

A meaningful starting point, however, is 1688 – 9 when James II fled England and the Parliament of England confirmed William and Mary as joint constitutional monarchs, enacting legislation that limited their authority and that of their successors: the Bill of Rights ( 1689 ), the Mutiny Bill ( 1689 ), the Triennial Bill ( 1694 ), the Treason Act ( 1696 ) and the Act of Settlement ( 1701 ).

She was declared heiress presumptive to Queen Anne of England and Ireland by the Act of Settlement 1701, which was passed by the English parliament, and therefore only applied to the Kingdom of England ( which included Wales ) and the Kingdom of Ireland.

A year later, Parliament passed the Act of Settlement 1701 declaring that, in the default of legitimate issue from Anne or William III, the crowns were to settle upon " the most excellent princess Sophia, electress and duchess-dowager of Hanover " and " the heirs of her body, being Protestant ".

Whereas English judges won their independence from the Crown in the Act of Settlement 1701, American colonial judges still served at the pleasure of the King.

Yale traces its beginnings to " An Act for Liberty to Erect a Collegiate School ", passed by the General Court of the Colony of Connecticut on October 9, 1701, in an effort to create an institution to train ministers and lay leadership for Connecticut.

* June 24 – The Act of Settlement 1701 is passed by the Parliament of England to exclude the Catholic Stuarts from the British monarchy.

Along with the Act of Settlement ( 1700 or 1701 ), the Bill of Rights is still in effect.

The Bill of Rights was later supplemented by the Act of Settlement in 1701 ( while the Claim of Right Act in Scotland was supplemented by the Act of Union, 1707 ).

To address the succession crisis and preclude a Catholic restoration, the Parliament of England enacted the Act of Settlement 1701, which provided that, failing the issue of Anne and of William III by any future marriage, the Crown of England and Ireland would go to Sophia, Electress of Hanover and her Protestant descendants.

The Act of Settlement 1701, passed by the English Parliament, applied in England and Ireland but not Scotland, where a strong minority wished to preserve the Stuart dynasty and its right of inheritance to the throne.

Although over fifty Roman Catholics bore closer blood relationships to Anne, the Act of Settlement 1701 prohibited Catholics from inheriting the British throne ; George was Anne's closest living Protestant relative.

By the terms of the English Act of Settlement 1701, George's mother, Sophia, was designated as the heir to the English throne if the then reigning monarch ( William III ) and his sister-in-law, Princess Anne of Denmark ( later Queen Anne ) died without surviving issue.

Eventually, in 1707, both Parliaments agreed on an Act of Union which united England and Scotland into a single political entity, the Kingdom of Great Britain, and established the rules of succession as laid down by the Act of Settlement 1701.

In 1471 James bestowed the castle and lands of Ravenscraig in Fife on William Sinclair, in exchange for all his rights to the earldom of Orkney, which, by an Act of the Parliament of Scotland, passed on 20 February 1472, was annexed to the Scottish crown.

The power to censure is not directly mentioned in the constitutional texts of Canada but is derived from the powers bestowed upon both Chambers through section 18 of the Constitution Act, 1867.

In 1803, the United Kingdom Parliament bestowed upon him an annuity of £ 1200 a year ( Annuity to Admiral Saumarez Act 1803 ).

* The Jones-Shafroth Act 1917 bestowed US citizenship upon people of Puerto Rico.

Trinity College Dublin is included in the Act despite it being outside the UK's jurisdiction, as the Act continued the more ancient right bestowed on the college in 1801, when Ireland was part of the Union.

However, legislating for alterations to the Act is a complex process, since the act is a common denominator in the shared succession of all the Commonwealth realms and the Statute of Westminster 1931 acknowledges by established convention that any changes to the rules of succession may be made only with the agreement of all of the states involved, with concurrent amendments to be made by each state's parliament or parliaments.

Or, third, it incorporates the United Kingdom rules of succession into the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, which itself can now be altered only by Australia, according to the Australia Act 1986 ; in that way, the British rules of succession have been patriated to Australia and, with regard to Australia, are subject to amendment or repeal solely by Australian law.

) Criticism of the Act of Settlement due to the Phillips-Kelly marriage was muted when Autumn Kelly converted to Anglicanism shortly before her marriage thus preserving her husband's place in the line of succession.

His will swept aside the Succession to the Crown Act 1543, excluded both Mary and Elizabeth from the succession, and instead declared as his heir Lady Jane Grey, granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary, Duchess of Suffolk.

The treaty, which became the Act of Union 1707, confirmed the Hanoverian succession.

Under the act polygamy was illegal, and inheritance and succession would be governed by the Indian Succession Act, rather than the respective Muslim Personal Law.

Henry returned Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession, through the Act of Succession 1544, placing them after Edward.

Contradicting the Succession Act, which restored Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession, Edward named Dudley's daughter-in-law Lady Jane Grey, the granddaughter of Henry VIII's younger sister Mary, Queen of France, as his successor.

Over the next twenty years, a succession of further court decisions and federal laws, including the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and measure to end mortgage discrimination in 1975, would completely invalidate de jure racial segregation and discrimination in the U. S., although de facto segregation and discrimination have proven more resilient.

In February 1937, the South African Parliament formally gave its " assent " by passing the Abdication Act, which declared that Edward had abdicated on 10 December 1936 ; that he and his descendants, if any, would have no right of succession to the throne ; and that the Royal Marriages Act would not apply to him or his descendants, if any.

* Third Succession Act: Elizabeth is restored to the order of succession to the throne of England.

It is one of the main constitutional laws governing the succession to the throne of the United Kingdom and — following British colonialism, the resultant doctrine of reception, and independence — to the thrones of those other Commonwealth realms, by willing deference to the Act as a British statute or as a patriated part of the particular realm's constitution.