Act of Parliament | |
Long title | An Act for recognizing King William and Queene Mary and for avoiding all Questions touching the Acts made in the Parliament assembled at Westminster the thirteenth day of February one thousand six hundred and eighty eight. [2] |
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Citation | 2 Will. & Mar. c. 1 |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 14 April 1690 [3] |
Commencement | 20 March 1690 |
Other legislation | |
Amends | Bill of Rights 1689 |
Amended by | Statute Law Revision Act 1948 |
Status: Current legislation | |
Text of statute as originally enacted | |
Revised text of statute as amended |
The Crown and Parliament Recognition Act 1689 (2 Will. & Mar. c. 1) was an Act of the Parliament of England, passed in April 1690 but backdated to the start of the parliamentary session, which started on 20 March 1690. [lower-alpha 1] It was designed to confirm the succession to the throne of King William III and Queen Mary II of England and to confirm the validity of the laws passed by the Convention Parliament which had been irregularly convened following the Glorious Revolution and the end of James II's reign.
This Act is still wholly in force in England and Wales (as of 2024 [update] ). [4]
The Act was passed because in 1688 King James II of England was deposed (he was deemed to have abdicated) and replaced as monarch by William and Mary, who ruled jointly. However this could not be achieved without an Act of Parliament to approve it. Since no parliament was in existence at the time, it was necessary to convene one, but under the traditional constitution only the monarch could summon a parliament. In the absence of a monarch to do so, the members of the previous parliament convened a new one themselves, without a royal summons, instead asking William to issue the summons, which he did on 22 January 1689. This irregular Parliament sat on 13 February. They declared James to have abdicated, and then chose Mary (his daughter) and William (her husband and first cousin) to succeed him, and passed an Act to make it legal. This Act was the Bill of Rights 1689. (In Scotland a separate Act was passed, the Claim of Right, which stated that James had forfeited the throne by his illegal actions and his failure to take the coronation oath.)
However, doubts arose as to the validity of the Bill of Rights and the other Acts passed by the Convention Parliament. Since the Parliament had not been summoned in the regular way, it was arguable that it was no parliament at all and its legislation was of no legal effect (although this occurrence was not unprecedented in English history). Therefore after the Convention Parliament was dissolved and the next parliament was summoned by the King and Queen in the normal manner, the Crown and Parliament Recognition Act was passed to confirm the validity of the royal succession and the previous parliament's legislative competence.
The difficulty with the Act is that if the Convention Parliament had no authority, then the succession of William and Mary was of no legal effect, which meant that they were not empowered to give royal assent to any bill in the next parliament, with the result that even the Crown and Parliament Recognition Act was of no effect either. This very point was argued before the Hereford County Court in 1944 by a litigant who represented himself in a probate case called Hall v. Hall. [5] He argued that the Court of Probate Act 1857 (which undermined his case) was of no legal effect whatsoever, since it had never received royal assent. It had received royal assent from Queen Victoria, but according to his argument Victoria had never legally inherited the throne, because the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement 1701 (which also altered the line of succession to the throne) were of no effect, since both had been assented to by William III, who was not the real king. Therefore Victoria had never been the real queen and so the Probate Act (like every other Act passed since 1689) was not the law. Predictably, the judge ruled against him, and the point has never been argued in court since.
Although the judge did not give detailed reasons for his decision, a counterpoint to the above argument has been advanced by academics: "One possible answer, deducible from rationalizations of later medieval practice when usurpations of the throne were not uncommon, is that ... [a]s a matter of State necessity ... a de facto King had been regarded as competent to summon a lawful Parliament." [6]
An Act for Recognizing King William and Queene Mary and for avoiding all Questions touching the Acts made in the Parliament assembled at Westminster the thirteenth day of February one thousand six hundred eighty eight. [7]Wee your Majestyes most humble and loyall subjects the lords spirituall and temporall and commons in this present Parlyament assembled doe beseech your most excellent Majestyes that it may be published and declared in this High Court of Parlyament and enacted by authoritie of the same that we doe recognize and acknowledge your Majestyes were are and of right ought to be [by] the laws of this realme our soveraigne liege lord and lady King and Queene of England France and Ireland and the dominions thereunto belonging in and to whose princely persons the royall state crowne and dignity of the said realms with all honours stiles regalities prerogatives powers jurisdictions and authorities to the same belonging and appertaining are most fully rightfully and intirely invested and incorporated united and annexed. And for the avoiding of all disputes and questions concerning the being and authority of the late Parliament assembled at Westminster the thirteenth day of February one thousand six hundred eighty eight wee doe most humbly beseech your Majestyes that it may be enacted and bee it enacted by the King and Queenes most excellent Majestyes by and with the advice and consent of the lords spirituall and temporall and commons in this present Parlyament assembled and by authoritie of the same that all and singular the Acts made and enacted in the said Parlyament were and are laws and statutes of this kingdome and as such ought to be reputed taken and obeyed by all the people of this kingdome.
Crown Recognition Act (Ireland) 1692 | |
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Act of Parliament | |
Long title | An Act of Recognition, of their Majesties undoubted Right to the Crown of Ireland. |
Citation | 4 Will. & Mar. c. 1 (I) |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 3 November 1692 |
Status: Current legislation |
In the Kingdom of Ireland another act, the Crown Recognition Act (Ireland) 1692(4 Will. & Mar. c. 1 (I)), entitled An Act of Recognition, of their Majesties undoubted Right to the Crown of Ireland was passed by the Parliament of Ireland, which made similar provision. In the Republic of Ireland this was repealed by section 1 of, and the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision (Pre-Union Irish Statutes) Act 1962.
The Act of Settlement is an act of the Parliament of England that settled the succession to the English and Irish crowns to only Protestants, which passed in 1701. More specifically, anyone who became a Roman Catholic, or who married one, became disqualified to inherit the throne. This had the effect of deposing the remaining descendants of Charles I, other than his Protestant granddaughter Anne, as the next Protestant in line to the throne was Sophia of Hanover. Born into the House of Wittelsbach, she was a granddaughter of James VI and I from his most junior surviving line, with the crowns descending only to her non-Catholic heirs. Sophia died less than two months before Queen Anne, and Sophia's son succeeded to the throne as King George I, starting the Hanoverian dynasty in Britain.
Sophia was Electress of Hanover from 19 December 1692 until 23 January 1698 as the consort of Prince-Elector Ernest Augustus. She was later the heiress presumptive to the thrones of England and Scotland and Ireland under the Act of Settlement 1701, as a granddaughter of King James VI and I. Sophia died less than two months before she would have become Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Consequently, her son George I succeeded her first cousin once removed, Queen Anne, to the British throne. The succession to the throne has since been composed entirely of, and legally defined as Sophia's legitimate and Protestant descendants.
The Statute of Westminster 1931 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that sets the basis for the relationship between the Dominions and the Crown.
The Bill of Rights 1689 is an Act of the Parliament of England that set out certain basic civil rights and changed the succession to the English Crown. It remains a crucial statute in English constitutional law.
Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in others that is a separate step. Under a modern constitutional monarchy, royal assent is considered little more than a formality. Even in nations such as the United Kingdom, Norway, the Netherlands, Liechtenstein and Monaco which still, in theory, permit their monarch to withhold assent to laws, the monarch almost never does so, except in a dire political emergency or on advice of government. While the power to veto by withholding royal assent was once exercised often by European monarchs, such an occurrence has been very rare since the eighteenth century.
The Convention Parliament was a parliament in English history which, owing to an abeyance of the Crown, assembled without formal summons by the Sovereign. Sir William Blackstone applied the term to only two English Parliaments, those of 1660 and 1689, but some sources have also applied the name to the parliament of 1399.
Succession to the British throne is determined by descent, sex, legitimacy, and religion. Under common law, the Crown is inherited by a sovereign's children or by a childless sovereign's nearest collateral line. The Bill of Rights 1689 and the Act of Settlement 1701 restrict succession to the throne to the legitimate Protestant descendants of Sophia of Hanover who are in "communion with the Church of England". Spouses of Catholics were disqualified from 1689 until the law was amended in 2015. Protestant descendants of those excluded for being Roman Catholics are eligible.
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Demise of the Crown is the legal term in the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms for the transfer of the Crown upon the death or abdication of the monarch. The Crown transfers automatically to the monarch's heir. The concept evolved in the kingdom of England, and was continued in Great Britain and then the United Kingdom. The concept also became part of the constitutions of the British colonies, and was continued in the constitutions of the Commonwealth realms, until modified within those realms.
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An Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom is primary legislation passed by the UK Parliament in Westminster, London.
The Accession Declaration Act 1910 is an Act which was passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to alter the declaration that the Sovereign is required to make at their accession to the throne as first required by the Bill of Rights 1689. In it, they solemnly declare themself to be faithful to the Protestant faith. The altered declaration is as follows:
"I [here insert the name of the Sovereign] do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God profess, testify, and declare that I am a faithful Protestant, and that I will, according to the true intent of the enactments which secure the Protestant succession to the Throne of my Realm, uphold and maintain the said enactments to the best of my powers according to law."
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The Succession to the Crown Act 2013 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that altered the laws of succession to the British throne in accordance with the 2011 Perth Agreement. The Act replaced male-preference primogeniture with absolute primogeniture for those in the line of succession born after 28 October 2011, which means the eldest child, regardless of gender, precedes any siblings. The Act also repealed the Royal Marriages Act 1772, ended disqualification of a person who married a Roman Catholic from succession, and removed the requirement for those outside the first six persons in line to the throne to seek the Sovereign's approval to marry. It came into force on 26 March 2015, at the same time as the other Commonwealth realms implemented the Perth Agreement in their own laws.
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