Forasmuchas the future security of your Majesty’s protestant subjects of this kingdom doth (next under God) depend upon the safety of your Majesty’s royal person (whom God long preserve to reign over us) and upon the succession in the protestant line, as the same is limited by an act of Parliament passed in England, intituled, M1“ The Bill of Rights”; and by one other act made in England in the twelfth year of the reign of his late Majesty King William the third of blessed memory, intituled, “The M2Act of Settlement”; by which it is enacted, “That the imperial crown and government of the kingdoms of England, France, and Ireland, and of the dominions thereunto belonging, with the royal state and dignity of the said realms, and all honours, styles, titles, regalities, prerogatives, powers, jurisdictions and authorities to the same belonging and appertaining, should, after the deceases of his said Majesty, and of her then royal highness the princess Anne of Denmark (our now most gracious sovereign lady Queen Anne) without issue of her body, and for default of issue of her said Majesty and of his said Majesty respectively, be, remain, and continue to the most excellent princess Sophia electoress and dutchess dowager of Hanover, 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 the heirs of her body, being protestants:” and forasmuch as it most manifestly appears that the papists of this kingdom, and other disaffected persons, do still entertain hopes of disappointing the said succession, as the same stands limited: