prerogative for which the great majority of the judges found no
authority;" while another, with something of prophetic sagacity, urged
that the bill "was pregnant with civil discord and confusion, and had a
natural tendency to produce a disputed title to the crown."

It may be doubted whether the circumstances which had induced George
III. to demand such a power as that with which the bill invested him
justified its enactment. He was already the father of a family so
numerous as to render it highly improbable that either of his brothers
or any of their children would ever come to the throne; while, as a
previously existing law barred any prince or princess who might marry a
Roman Catholic from the succession, the additional restraint imposed by
the new statute practically limited their choice to an inconveniently
small number of foreign royal houses, many of which, to say the least,
are not superior in importance or purity of blood to many of our own
nobles.

Nor can it be said to have been successful in accomplishing his
Majesty's object. It is notorious that two of his sons, and very
generally believed that one of his daughters, married subjects; the
Prince of Wales having chosen a wife who was not only inferior in rank
and social position to Lady Waldegrave or Mrs. Horton, but was moreover
a Roman Catholic; and that another of his sons petitioned more than once
for permission to marry an English heiress of ancient family. And our
present sovereign may be thought to have pronounced her opinion that the
act goes too far, when she gave one of her younger daughters in marriage
to a nobleman who, however high in rank, has no royal blood in his
veins. The political inconvenience which might arise from the
circumstance of the reigning sovereign being connected by near and
intimate relationship with a family of his British subjects will,