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Assuming either William III & Mary II or Queen Anne & Prince George of Denmark had been able to leave surviving issue, would it have been proclaimed? I have the impression the Act was only proclaimed because neither Mary II nor Anne were able to leave surviving issue.

After all, when the Act was proclaimed in 1701, the situation was the following one:

  • Mary II had died in 1694, childless. William III never remarried and apparently had no intentions to do so.
  • Queen Anne, despite 18 pregnancies, had only one surviving son: Prince William, Duke of Gloucester. But he died of smallpox in 1700.
Because of this, had the Act not been proclaimed, the next King of Great Britain & Ireland would have been a Catholic, be it a Jacobite or not. George I and the Hannovers were the lowest in the rank of succession as they descended from Sophia of Hannover, the youngest daughter of Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James I & VI. However, being the only Protestants, they were the only ones that could have met the Parliament's requirements according to the Act.

But, were either Mary II or Anne to leave children behind, they would have a claim stronger than all the Catholic pretenders, save for the Jacobite ones since James Francis Edward Stuart should have been the successor of James II had the Glorious Revolution not happened. And unless the Jacobite Pretenders prove particularly threatening, I don't see how Parliament would feel the need to proclaim the Act of Settlement: the successor of Mary II, William III or Anne would have been a Protestant and would have been succeeded by Protestants.

So, would the Act of Settlement have been proclaimed had either Mary II (and thus William III) or Anne left surviving issue?
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