She
was adopted for one reason, and for one only, because, says the act,
"the most excellent Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager
of Hanover, is daughter of the most excellent Princess Elizabeth, late
Queen of Bohemia, daughter of our late sovereign lord King James the
First, of happy memory, and is hereby declared to be the next in
succession in the Protestant line etc., etc., and the crown shall
continue to the heirs of her body, being Protestants." This limitation
was made by parliament, that through the Princess Sophia an
inheritable line not only was to be continued in future, but (what
they thought very material) that through her it was to be connected
with the old stock of inheritance in King James the First, in order
that the monarchy might preserve an unbroken unity through all ages
and might be preserved (with safety to our religion) in the old
approved mode by descent, in which, if our liberties had been once
endangered, they had often, through all storms and struggles of
prerogative and privilege, been preserved. They did well. No
experience has taught us that in any other course or method than
that of an hereditary crown our liberties can be regularly perpetuated
and preserved sacred as our hereditary right. An irregular, convulsive
movement may be necessary to throw off an irregular, convulsive
disease. But the course of succession is the healthy habit of the
British constitution.
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