defect of ſuch children, then with this remarkable remainder, to ſuch perſons as the king by letters patent, or laſt will and teſtament, ſhould limit and appoint the ſame. A vaſt power; but, notwithſtanding, as it was regularly veſted in him by the ſupreme legiſlative authority, it was therefore indiſputably valid. But this power was never carried into execution; for by ſtatute 35 Hen. VIII. c. 1. the king’s two daughters are legitimated again, and the crown is limited to prince Edward by name, after that to the lady Mary, and then to the lady Elizabeth, and the heirs of their reſpective bodies; which ſucceſſion took effect accordingly, being indeed no other than the uſual courſe of the law, with regard to the deſcent of the crown.
But leſt there ſhould remain any doubt in the minds of the people, through this jumble of acts for limiting the ſucceſſion, by ſtatute 1 Mar. p. 2. c. 1. queen Mary’s hereditary right to the throne is acknowleged and recognized in theſe words: “the crown of theſe realms is moſt lawfully, juſtly, and rightly deſcended and come to the queen’s highneſs that now is, being the very, true, and undoubted heir and inheritrix thereof.” And again, upon the queen’s marriage with Philip of Spain, in the ſtatute which ſettles the preliminaries of that match[1], the hereditary right to the crown is thus aſſerted and declared: “as touching the right of the queen’s inheritance in the realm and dominions of England, the children, whether male or female, ſhall ſucceed in them, according to the known laws, ſtatutes, and cuſtoms of the ſame.” Which determination of the parliament, that the ſucceſſion ſhall continue in the uſual courſe, ſeems tacitly to imply a power of new-modelling and altering it, in caſe the legiſlature had thought proper.
On queen Elizabeth’s acceſſion, her right is recognized in ſtill ſtronger terms than her ſiſter’s; the parliament acknowleging[2], “that the queen’s highneſs is, and in very deed and of moſt mere right ought to be, by the laws of God, and the laws and sta-
