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{{Blockquote|Therefore for a further Provision of the Succession of the Crown in the Protestant Line We Your Majesties most dutifull and Loyall Subjects the [[Lords Spiritual]]l and [[Lords Temporal]]l and Commons in this present Parliament assembled do beseech Your Majesty that it may be enacted and declared and be it enacted and declared by the Kings most Excellent Majesty by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by the Authority of the same That the most Excellent Princess Sophia Electress and Dutchess Dowager of Hannover Daughter of the most Excellent Princess Elizabeth late Queen of Bohemia Daughter of our late Sovereign Lord King James the First of happy Memory be and is hereby declared to be the next in Succession in the Protestant Line to the Imperiall Crown and Dignity of the forsaid Realms of England France and Ireland with the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging after His Majesty and the Princess Anne of Denmark and in Default of Issue of the said Princess Anne and of His Majesty respectively.}}
Sophia was made next in line to cut off a claim by the Roman Catholic [[James Francis Edward Stuart]], who would have become James III and VIII and to deny the throne to the many other Roman Catholics and spouses of Roman Catholics who held a claim. The act restricts the British throne to the "Protestant heirs" of Sophia of Hanover who had never been Roman Catholic or married a Roman Catholic. In 1711, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland recommended that its congregations pray regularly "for the Princess Sophia, Electoress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, and the Protestant line in that family, upon whom the succession to the crown of these dominions is by law established".<ref>{{cite web |title=Acts: 1711 Pages 450-459 Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 1638-1842. |url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/church-scotland-records/acts/1638-1842/pp450-459 |website=British History Online |publisher=Edinburgh Printing & Publishing Co, Edinburgh, 1843. |access-date=30 January 2024}}</ref>
Some British politicians attempted several times to bring Sophia to England in order to enable her to assume government immediately in the event of Anne's death. It was argued that such a course was necessary to ensure Sophia's succession, for Anne's Roman Catholic half-brother was significantly closer to London than was Sophia. The Electress was eager to move to [[London]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sharpe |first=Kevin |url=https://archive.org/details/refiguringrevolu0000unse/page/59 |title=Refiguring revolutions: aesthetics and politics from the English revolution to the Romantic revolution |publisher=University of California Press |year=1998 |isbn=0-520-20920-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/refiguringrevolu0000unse/page/59 59]}}</ref> but the proposal was denied, as such action would mortally offend Anne, who was strongly opposed to a rival court in her kingdom. Anne might have been aware that Sophia, who was active and lively despite her old age, could cut a better figure than herself.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sachse |first=William Lewis |title=Lord Somers: a political portrait |publisher=Manchester University Press ND |year=1975 |isbn=0-7190-0604-X |pages=236}}</ref> Sophia was completely uncertain of what would happen after Anne's death, saying: "What Parliament does one day, it undoes the next."<ref name="p309">Sachse, p. 309</ref>
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