She may decline, with more or less formality, according to her discretion, to acknowledge this new system; or she may recognize it as a government de facto, setting aside all discussion of its original legality, and considering the ancient monarchy as at an end.
Burke outlines the options available to a state regarding recognition of a new government, reflecting on the complexities of legitimacy.
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But the course of succession is the healthy habit of the British Constitution.
No experience has taught us that in any other course or method than that of an hereditary crown our liberties can be regularly perpetuated and preserved sacred as our hereditary right.
When such an unwarrantable maxim is once established, that no throne is lawful but the elective, no one act of the princes who preceded this era of fictitious election can be valid.
Unquestionably there was at the Revolution, in the person of King William, a small and a temporary deviation from the strict order of a regular hereditary succession; but it is against all genuine principles of jurisprudence to draw a…
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