And it was contended that there never had been a time when the possession of royal rank had been considered necessary to qualify any one to become consort of an English prince or princess.

It had not even been regarded as a necessary qualification for a queen.
Three of the wives of Henry VIII.

had been English subjects wholly unconnected with the royal family; nor had the Parliament nor the people in general complained of any one of those marriages; moreover, two of his children, who had in their turn succeeded to the crown, had been the offspring of two of those wives; and in the last century James II., while Duke of York, had married the daughter of an English gentleman; and, though it had not been without notorious reluctance that his royal brother had sanctioned that connection, it was well known that Charles II.

himself had proposed to marry the niece of Cardinal Mazarin.

In the House of Peers, Lord Camden especially objected to the clause annulling a marriage between persons of full age; and in the Commons, Mr.
Dowdeswell, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Rockingham's administration, dwelt with especial vigor on the unreasonableness of the clause which fixed twenty-five as the age before which no prince or princess could marry without the King's consent.
"Law, positive law," he argued, "and not the arbitrary will of an individual, should be the only restraint.