But would such a clause supply the place of a clause designating the successor by name?
What if the next heir should be a prince of the House of Savoy not three months old?
It would be absurd to call such an infant a Papist.

Was he then to be proclaimed King?
Or was the crown to be in abeyance till he came to an age at which he might be capable of choosing a religion?
Might not the most honest and the most intelligent men be in doubt whether they ought to regard him as their Sovereign?
And to whom could they look for a solution of this doubt?
Parliament there would be none: for the Parliament would expire with the prince who had convoked it.

There would be mere anarchy, anarchy which might end in the destruction of the monarchy, or in the destruction of public liberty.

For these weighty reasons, Barnet, at William's suggestion, proposed it the House of Lords that the crown should, failing heirs of His Majesty's body, be entailed on an undoubted Protestant, Sophia, Duchess of Brunswick Lunenburg, granddaughter of James the First, and daughter of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia.
The Lords unanimously assented to this amendment: but the Commons unanimously rejected it.

The cause of the rejection no contemporary writer has satisfactorily explained.