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Government and Politics

Britain

What was the Act of Settlement?

The 1701 decree reiterated the Bill of Rights of 1689 by stating that the king or queen of England must not be a Roman Catholic and must also not be married to a Roman Catholic. The Act of Settlement further stipulated that the sovereign must be a member of the Protestant Church of England. The measure was passed by Parliament, in part due to fear of the Jacobites, supporters of the Stuart king, James II (1633–1701), who had been exiled in 1688 in the Glorious Revolution. The Jacobites (not to be confused with the French Jacobins, the political party that came to power during the French Revolution), sought to keep the House of Stuart in power. Due to the line of succession, however, the Act of Settlement did not take effect until 1714, when Queen Anne (1665–1714) died and left no successors to the throne. She was the last Stuart ruler of England.



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