That whosoever shall hereafter come to the possession of this Crown, shall join in communion with the church of England as by law established.
That in case the Crown and imperial dignity of this realm shall hereafter come to any person, not being a native of this kingdom of England, this nation be not obliged to engage in any war for the defence of any dominions or territories which do not belong to the Crown of England, without the consent of parliament.
That no person who shall hereafter come to the possession of this Crown, shall go out of the dominions of England, Scotland, or Ireland, without consent of parliament.
That from and after the time that the further limitation by this act shall take effect, all matters and things relating to the well governing of this kingdom, which are properly cognisable in the privy council by the laws and customs of this realm, shall be transacted there, and all resolutions taken thereupon shall be signed by such of the privy council as shall advise and consent to the same.
That, after the said limitation shall take effect as aforesaid, no person born out of the kingdoms of England, Scotland, or Ireland, or the dominions thereunto belonging (although he be naturalised or made a denizen—except such as are born of English parents), shall be capable to be of the privy council, or a member of either house of parliament, or to enjoy any office or place of trust, either civil or military, or to have any grant of lands, tenements, or hereditaments, from the Crown, to himself, or to any other or others in trust for him.
That no person who has an office or place of profit under the king, or receives a pension from the Crown, shall be capable of serving as a member of the House of Commons.
That, after the said limitation shall take effect as aforesaid, judges' commissions be made quamdiu se bene gesserint, and their salaries ascertained and established; but, upon the address of both houses of parliament, it may be lawful to remove them.
That no pardon under the great seal of England be pleadable to an impeachment by the Commons in parliament.[272]
The first of these provisions was well adapted to obviate the jealousy which the succession of a new dynasty, bred in a protestant church not altogether agreeing with our own, might excite in our susceptible nation. A similar apprehension of foreign government produced the second article, which so far limits the royal prerogative that any minister who could be proved to have advised or abetted a declaration of war in the specified contingency would be criminally responsible to parliament.[273] The third article was repealed very soon after the accession of George I., whose frequent journeys to Hanover were an abuse of the graciousness with which the parliament consented to annul the restriction.[274]
Privy council superseded by a cabinet.—A very remarkable alteration that had been silently wrought in the course of the executive government, gave rise to the fourth of the remedial articles in the act of settlement. According to the original constitution of our monarchy, the king had his privy council composed of the great officers of state, and of such others as he should summon to it, bound by an oath of fidelity and secrecy, by whom all affairs of weight, whether as to domestic or exterior policy, were debated for the most part in his presence, and determined, subordinately of course to his pleasure, by the vote of the major part. It could not happen but that some counsellors more eminent than the rest should form juntos or cabals, for more close and private management, or be selected as more confidential advisers of their sovereign; and the very name of a cabinet council, as distinguished from the large body, may be found as far back as the reign of Charles I. But the resolutions of the Crown, whether as to foreign alliances or the issuing of proclamations and orders at home, or any other overt act of government, were not finally taken without the deliberation and assent of that body whom the law recognised as its sworn and notorious counsellors. This was first broken in upon after the restoration, and especially after the fall of Clarendon, a strenuous assertor of the rights and dignity of the privy council. "The king," as he complains, "had in his nature so little reverence and esteem for antiquity, and did in truth so much contemn old orders, forms, and institutions, that the objection of novelty rather advanced than obstructed any proposition."[275] He wanted to be absolute on the French plan, for which both he and his brother, as the same historian tells us, had a great predilection, rather than obtain a power little less arbitrary, so far at least as private rights were concerned, on the system of his three predecessors. The delays and the decencies of a regular council, the continual hesitation of lawyers, were not suited to his temper, his talents, or his designs. And it must indeed be admitted that the privy council, even as it was then constituted, was too numerous for the practical administration of supreme power. Thus by degrees it became usual for the ministry or cabinet to obtain the king's final approbation of their measures, before they were laid, for a merely formal ratification, before the council. It was one object of Sir William Temple's short-lived scheme in 1679 to bring back the ancient course; the king pledging himself on the formation of his new privy council to act in all things by its advice.