Actof Settlement

Act of Settlement, an Act passed in 1700, by which all prior claims to the throne, excepting that of the issue of William or of Anne, were set aside in favour of Princess Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and the heirs of her body; by this Act George I., her son, succeeded to the crown on the death of Anne. In 1652 Cromwell's measure for the settlement of Ireland, also known as the Act of Settlement, was passed; it is this settlement that Mr. Lecky regards as "the foundation of the aversion between the proprietary and the tenants, which is the chief cause of the political and social evils of Ireland."