Settlement, Act of, passed in England in 1701, ensured that the monarch from that time on would be Protestant and would be required to swear to defend the Protestant faith as head of the Church of England. The act granted succession to the English crown to Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and her Protestant heirs. Sophia was a granddaughter of King James I of England.
Parliament passed the act because King William III had no children, and his successor, the future Queen Anne, had lost her only surviving child. Parliament did not want a Roman Catholic on the throne of England, and after Anne’s death, the strongest claim to the throne would have been that of James II‘s Roman Catholic son, James Francis Edward Stuart, Anne’s half-brother. The act placed a new royal family, the House of Hanover, on the throne after the death of Queen Anne in 1714, when Sophia’s son became King George I.
See also Jacobite risings; Kings and queens of Britain.
