e earl of March, was indeed ridiculous; but it is by no means evident
that, in such cases of extreme urgency as leave no security for the
common weal but the deposition of a reigning prince, there rests any
positive obligation upon the estates of the realm to fill his place with
the nearest heir. A revolution of this kind seems rather to defeat and
confound all prior titles; though in the new settlement it will commonly
be prudent, as well as equitable, to treat them with some regard. Were
this otherwise it would be hard to say why William III. reigned to the
exclusion of Anne, or even of the Pretender, who had surely committed no
offence at that time; or why (if such indeed be the true construction of
the Act of Settlement) the more distant branches of the royal stock,
descendants of Henry VII. and earlier kings, have been cut off from
their hope of succession by the restriction to the heirs of the princess
Sophia.

In this revolution of 1399 there was as remarkable an attention shown to
the formalities of the constitution, allowance made for the men and the
times, as in that of 1688. The parliament was not opened by commission;
no one took the office of president; the commons did not adjourn to
their own chamber; they chose no speaker; the name of parliament was not
taken, but that only of estates of the realm. But as it would have been
a violation of constitutional principles to assume a parliamentary
character without the king's commission, though summoned by his writ, so
it was still more essential to limit their exercise of power to the
necessity of circumstances. Upon the cession of the king, as upon his
death, the parliament was no more; its existence, as the council of the
sovereign, being dependent upon his will. The actual convention summoned
by the writs of Richard could not legally become the parliament of
Henry; and the validity of a statute declaring it to be such would
probably have been questionable in that age, when the power of statutes
to alter the original principles of the common law was by no means so
thoroughly recognised as at the Restoration and Revolution. Yet Henry
was too well pleased with his friends to part with them so readily; and
he had much to effect before the fervour of their spirits should abate.
Hence an expedient was devised of issuing writs for a new parliament,
returnable in six days. These neither were nor could be complied with;
but the same members as had deposed Richard sat i