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Test: SSAT Upper Level Reading
Adapted from Queen Elizabeth by Jacob Abbott (1876; 1904 ed.)
As to the question whether Mary or Elizabeth had the rightful title to the English crown, it has not only never been settled, but from its very nature it cannot be settled. It is one of those cases in which a peculiar contingency occurs which runs beyond the scope and reach of all the ordinary principles by which analogous cases are tried, and leads to questions which cannot be decided. As long as a hereditary succession goes smoothly on, like a river keeping within its banks, we can decide subordinate and incidental questions which may arise; but when a case occurs in which we have the omnipotence of Parliament to set off against the infallibility of the pope—the sacred obligations of a will against the equally sacred principles of hereditary succession—and when we have, at last, two contradictory actions of the same ultimate umpire, we find all technical grounds of coming to a conclusion gone. We then, abandoning these, seek for some higher and more universal principles—essential in the nature of things, and thus independent of the will and action of man—to see if they will throw any light on the subject. But we soon find ourselves as much perplexed and confounded in this inquiry as we were before. We ask, in beginning the investigation, What is the ground and nature of the right by which any king or queen succeeds to the power possessed by his ancestors? And we give up in despair, not being able to answer even this first preliminary inquiry.
| 1. | The author of this passage would most likely agree with which of the following statements? |
Royal families maintain their power more through human will than by natural right.
Mary would have been a better queen than Elizabeth had she ruled for as many years.
When the Pope and Parliament disagree, Parliament will always get its way.
Only when hereditary succession goes smoothly does a king or queen have a natural right to the throne.
We cannot truly understand Elizabeth's reign because we cannot even determine whether she was the rightful ruler.
