13 FEBRUARY 1897, Page 14

THE SUCCESSION TO THE CROWN.

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:]

Six,—Since, at the accession of James I., the statutes then in. force vested the succession to the Crown in the heirs of Mary Tudor (Duchess of Suffolk) and not in those of Margaret Tudor, will our legitimist friends explain how James L's title is better than that of William III., or William M.'s worse than that of James I., as far at least as the Crown of England is con- cerned? The position of Scotland is of course different. But perhaps they are prepared to go the length of saying that an Act of Parliament, assented to by a King whose legal right is undoubted (and such was Henry VIII.), cannot legitimately settle the succession to the Crown.—I am, Sir, &c.,

W. L. D. G.