Act of Settlement 1701 in the context of "James Francis Edward Stuart"

Sophia (German: Sophie, [zoˈfiː]; 14 October [O.S. 3 October] 1630 – 8 June [O.S. 28 May] 1714) was Electress of Hanover from 1692 to 1698 as the consort of Prince-Elector Ernest Augustus. She was later the heiress presumptive to the thrones of England and Scotland (later Great Britain) and Ireland under the Act of Settlement 1701, as she was the granddaughter of King James VI and I. Sophia died less than two months before she would have become Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Consequently, her son George succeeded her first cousin once removed, Queen Anne, to the British throne. The succession to the throne has since been composed entirely of, and legally defined as, Sophia's legitimate and Protestant descendants.

Sophia was born in The Hague to Frederick V, formerly Elector Palatine and King of Bohemia, and Elizabeth (Stuart), daughter of King James VI and I. She grew up in the Dutch Republic, where her family had sought refuge after the sequestration of their Electorate during the Thirty Years' War. Sophia's brother Charles Louis was restored as elector in the Palatinate as part of the Peace of Westphalia. During this time, the English Stuarts also went into exile and Sophia was courted by her cousin, Charles II of England.

In English law, heirs of the body is the principle that certain types of property pass to a descendant of the original holder, recipient or grantee according to a fixed order of kinship. Upon the death of the grantee, a designated inheritance such as a parcel of land, a peerage, or a monarchy, passes automatically to that living, legitimate, natural descendant of the grantee who is most senior in descent according to primogeniture, males being preferred, however, over their sisters regardless of relative age; and thereafter the property continues to pass to subsequent descendants of the grantee, according to the same formula, upon the death of each subsequent heir.

Baronies created by writ of summons to Parliament usually descend to heirs of the body of the grantee, and may thus be inherited by females. By the terms of the Act of Settlement 1701 and the Acts of Union 1707, the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland descends to heirs of the body of the Electress Sophia of Hanover who are not Catholics or married to Catholics, subject to subsequent modification by Parliament (e.g. His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act 1936 and the Succession to the Crown Act 2013).

The Electorate of Hanover (German: Kurfürstentum Hannover or simply Kurhannover) was an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire located in northwestern Germany that arose from the Principality of Calenberg. Although formally known as the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg (German: Kurfürstentum Braunschweig-Lüneburg), it made Hanover its capital city. For most of its existence, the electorate was ruled in personal union with Great Britain and Ireland following the Hanoverian Succession.

The Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg had been split in 1269 between different branches of the House of Welf. The Principality of Calenberg, ruled by a cadet branch of the family, emerged as the largest and most powerful of the Brunswick-Lüneburg states. In 1692, the Holy Roman Emperor elevated the Prince of Calenberg to the College of Electors, creating the new Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg. The fortunes of the electorate were tied to those of Great Britain by the Act of Settlement 1701 and Act of Union 1707, which settled the succession to the British throne on Queen Anne's nearest Protestant relative, the Electress Sophia of Hanover, and her descendants.

Succession to the British throne is determined by descent, sex, legitimacy, and religion. Under common law, the Crown is inherited by a sovereign's children or by a childless sovereign's nearest collateral line. The Bill of Rights 1689 and the Act of Settlement 1701 restrict succession to the throne to the legitimate Protestant descendants of Sophia of Hanover who are in "communion with the Church of England". Spouses of Catholics were disqualified from 1689 until the law was amended in 2015. Protestant descendants of those excluded for being Roman Catholics are eligible.

King Charles III has been the sovereign since 2022, and his heir apparent is his elder son, William, Prince of Wales. William's three children are next, in order of birth: Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis. Fifth in line is Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, the younger son of the King; sixth is Harry's elder child, Prince Archie. Under the Perth Agreement, which came into effect in 2015, only the first six in line of succession require the sovereign's consent before they marry; without such consent, they and their children would be disqualified from succession.

George II (George Augustus; German: Georg August; 30 October / 9 November 1683 – 25 October 1760) was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) and a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 (O.S.) until his death in 1760.

Born and brought up in northern Germany, George is the most recent British monarch born outside Great Britain. The Act of Settlement 1701 and the Acts of Union 1707 positioned his grandmother Sophia of Hanover and her Protestant descendants to inherit the British throne. George married Princess Caroline of Ansbach, with whom he had eight children. After the deaths of George's grandmother and Anne, Queen of Great Britain, George's father, the Elector of Hanover, ascended the British throne as George I in 1714. In the first years of his father's reign as king, Prince George was associated with opposition politicians until they rejoined the governing party.

Recusancy (from Latin: recusare, lit. 'to refuse') was the state of those who remained loyal to the Catholic Church and refused to attend Church of England services after the English Reformation.

The 1558 Recusancy Acts passed in the reign of Elizabeth I, and temporarily repealed in the Interregnum (1649–1660), remained on the statute books until 1888. They imposed punishments such as fines, property confiscation and imprisonment on recusants. The suspension under Oliver Cromwell was mainly intended to give relief to Nonconformist Protestants rather than to Catholics, to whom some restrictions applied into the 1920s, through the Act of Settlement 1701, despite the 1828–1829 Catholic emancipation.