“THE PRESERVATION OF THE PROTESTANT RELIGION AND THE MAINTENANCE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND”: ACTS OF THE LAST SESSIONS OF WILLIAM III AND THE FIRST SESSION OF QUEEN ANNE, 1701-02

PARLIAMENT. Anno Regni Gulielmi III… Decimo Tertio (XIII & XIV)… begun the Thirtieth Day of December, 1701 (And from thence Continued to the Eighth Day of March, in the First Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lady Anne). London: Charles Bill, 1701-02. Thick folio, contemporary full brown polished calf, raised bands, later paper spine label. $1400.

First edition of Parliamentary Acts excluding Roman Catholics from the English Throne, and abetting the Protestant conversion of Jewish children.

In response to the pretensions of James, Prince of Wales, Parliament passed in 1701 the so-called “Act of Settlement” (pages 79ff.), which determined that if either William or Anne had no children, the Princess Sophia, Duchess Dowager of Hanover, should succeed to the English Throne on the death of Anne, thus quashing once and for all “the Popish Prince of Wales.” This Act perpetuated the Protestant succession to the throne to the exclusion of Roman Catholics, enjoining further that only a member of the Church of England could wear the crown of England. The First Parliament of Queen Anne passed another Act of religious intolerance: “An Act to Oblige the Jews to Maintain and Provide for their Protestant Children” (pages 453ff.)— a law designed to prevent Jewish parents from using the threat of disinheritance to win back their converted children. This copy is from the Sessional Volumes of Parliament, the earliest official printings available. Acts printed prior to 1796 are extremely scarce, since the maximum number printed “only slightly exceeded 1,100 copies,” and those were distributed solely to Members of the Houses of Parliament, the great officers and offices of state, and the judiciary (see Report of the Committee for the Promulgation of the Statutes, 1796). Sweet & Maxwell II, 175. Maxwell & Maxwell, 560.

Interior generally quite clean. Light rubbing to contemporary calf, near-fine.