The Sun.
London, England, 1839-11-26 00:00:00

EVENING EDITION.

which we can find fault." But is there nothing not in
it which ought to have been found there ? In refer- 1
rence to that point it says, " We regret this omission
,ne m-wsh as any one can, but it is only fair to own
tlicit the people are as much to blame for it as Mini-
*xis ; that the Queen is wholly without fault in
the matter, and that. the Protestant character of the '
House of Saxe Cobourg might have been confidently at
sorted had circumstances permitted the assertion." Now
we ask what are thar, circumstances that did not per-
nut the assertion of the Protestant character of the
l house of Saxe Cobourg? We are told that " the law
I
of 1829 destroyed the Protestant character of the Con-
stitution through all its branches." We are also told
I that we should not blame the Crown, or the Ministers
ofthe Croton, for an omission rendered inevitable by our
own act ; that is, by the act of the people as repre-
sented in the Parliament that passed the ill-advised and
most mischievous " Emancipation Act" of the Welling-
ton and Peel Administration. We have stated why we
I argue this question without any reference to the Queen
herself. Let us confine ourselves to the parties really
I responsible, who are her Majesty's Ministers, If eir-
-1 eumstances, as our Evening Contemporary asserts,
made the omission of any allusion to the Protestant
1 religion inevitable, most assuredly even the Ministers
I are free from blame. Nobody in that case would be in
fault except the authors of the Bill of 1829, and the
Parliament that made the Bill the law of the land.
If, indeed, the law has destroyed the Protestant cha-
racter ofthe Constitution through all its branches, then
is the Protestant character of the Crown destroyed.
If so the title to the throne is the house of Hanover is P
shaken. That title is built upon the exclusive ro-
,' testantisrn of at least one branch of the Constitu-
' tioe—the Crown. The moment that character of ex-
clusive Protestantism is removed from the Crown cer-
tain alleged claims to the inheritance of the British
I throne, which were put aside or suspended by the Act
ett ,
of Settlement vesting the title in the heirs of the body
of the Electress Sophia of Hanover being Protestants,
' may be revived. But as the Act of Settlement has
; not yet been repealed, one branch of the Constitution
(' still remains, in theory at least, exclusively Protestant,
P and must so coahreme unless Englishmen are prepared
, to surrender to opish ambition all the glarious rights
and liberties for which their patriotic ancestors success-
fully struggled at the Revolution of 1688. If the
( Bill for 1829 has rendered all allusion to the
i Protestant religion, in reference to the proposed mar-
t riage of a British Sovereien, improper or nugatory, the
same reason would hold good for omitting all allusion
to the Protestant religion, as the religion of the State,
at the solemn ceremony of the Coronation. On that
occasion the Queen was asked by the Archbishop of '
Canterbury, in administering the oath to the Sovereign,
I —" Will you, to the utmost of vour power, maintain
1 the laws of God, the true profession of the Gospel, and
the Protestant reformed religion established by law ?
And will you preserve to the Bishops and Clergy of
this realm, and to the churches committed to their
charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do or
shall appertain unto them or any of them ?" The Queen
answered " All this I promise to do," and confirmed this
I promise by laying her hands on the holy Gospels, and
r by kissing the same. But if the Bill of 1829 had
indeed destroyed the Protestant character of all the
branches of the Constitution, this part of the corona-
,
\ tion oath was unmeaning, absurd, and nugatory. If,
)or, the other hand, that solemn promise of the Queen
.‘ to maiv rain the Protestant reformed religion este-
( bllshed 'by law," at the coronation, had not a vain and
ridicr:mus allusion to the state of things which had
neP'sed to exist, why should any pledge respecting the
Protestant religion in the Queen's speech to the Privy
Council be a thing which the state of circumstances at
the present day does not permit ? Nothing has
occurred since the Queen's accession to destroy
in point of law the exclusive Protestant cha-
racter of the Crown, though in point of fact
I the Ministers have done a great deal to endanger
the Protestant reformed religion. That is a cir-
cumstance, however, which made it the more ne-
tesssary that the Queen should have made such a
declaration, or that the people should have required it.
The instances of apostacy or submission to the See
, of Rome which hare taken place in the Cobourg family
of sate years, and to which we adverted yesterday, made
it the more desirable that all reference to the Protestant
, religion should not have been omitted. Do Ministers
wish the Sovereign to appear ashamed or afraid to
express any particular attachment to that pure and holy
religion to which she is indebted for the sceptre of the
i British empire ? As to the fact of Prince Albert being
a Protestant, that, of course, could not be doubted, in-
asmuch as the law has not yet been erased from the
statute-book which makes the marriage of the Sovereign
with a Papist afinfciture of the Crown. But the country
would have been glad to have liersrd from the Queen's
1 own lips that her intended husband was as devotedly
I attached to the Protestant relv
'to'n as we must take it
iher Majesty herself is, althoup:'a supposed to be per-
sor ally attached to a Min'Atry labouring--not in exact
accordance with the coronation oath—to " inflict
heavy blows and g' eat discouragement on Protes-
tantism." We trust the leaders of the Conservatives
1 in Parliament do ant mean to act for the future as if
the Protestant
hays • .a.;'onstitution had already been destroyed
in all its brar
_w,oes, and, therefore, their political efforts
; should
no reference to religious considerations. If
i so, it is tlrse for the Protestant people of England to
1 ; look al.Y,ut them, and let their constitutional remon-
stra,vv",:s reach the Throne and the Parliament also.