advantages inherent in the marriage. Heiress presumptive In September 1700, Sophia met her cousin King William III of England at Het Loo Palace in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. This happened two months after the death of his nephew Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, son of the future Queen Anne. By this time, given the ailing William III's reluctance to remarry, the inclusion of Sophia in the line of succession was becoming more likely because she was a Protestant, as was her son. Her candidature was aided by the fact that she had grown up in the Netherlands close to William III and was able to converse fluently with him in Dutch, his native tongue. A year after their meeting, the Parliament of England passed the Act of Settlement 1701, which declared that in the event of no legitimate issue from Anne or William III, the crowns of England and Ireland were to settle upon "the most excellent princess Sophia, electress and duchess-dowager of Hanover" and "the heirs of her body, being Protestant". Scotland being a separate state in international law at the time, this did not mean she would also succeed Anne as Queen of Scotland, which led to a succession crisis and eventually to the Treaty of Union between Scotland and England in 1706/07. The key excerpt from the Act, naming Sophia as heir presumptive, reads: Sophia was made second 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. 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, 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