List of Heirs of Scotland - Heirs To Anne

Heirs To Anne

At the time of her accession, Queen Anne was the last living descendant of Charles I who was a Protestant; her only child to survive past infancy, the Duke of Gloucester, had died in 1700. The succession aspect of the Claim of Right Act which had ensured her succession (and that of the Bill of Rights by which she succeeded in England) would therefore lapse on her death. The English Parliament had already found a solution to this by passing the Act of Settlement, which named Sophia, Electress of Hanover, the next-senior Protestant descendant of James I (VI of Scotland), as heiress after Anne. The Estates of Scotland had made no such provision, so there was no heir to the Scottish throne. In 1703 the Estates passed a Bill reserving to themselves the right to choose the monarch from among the Protestant descendants of the Kings of Scots in the event of Anne's death without issue, but stating that this would not be the same person as succeeded to the English throne unless the independence of Scotland as a separate Kingdom could be assured. Royal Assent to the Bill was initially withheld, but after the Scots threatened to withdraw their troops presently engaged in the War of the Spanish Succession it was passed in 1704, becoming known as the Act of Security. The Parliament of England then passed the Alien Act 1705, which stopped all Scottish exports to England and English colonies, and enacted that Scots would be treated as foreigners in England, with severe consequences for the inheritance of Scottish-owned property in England. The Alien Act also said that these measures would not be enacted if the Act of Security was repealed or if Scotland entered into parliamentary union with England. The latter eventually took place with the passage of the Act of Union, and Scotland became part of the Kingdom of Great Britain on 1 May 1707.

• Sophia, Electress of Hanover was the heiress-presumptive to the new Kingdom, and her son became King as George I on Anne's death in 1714.