In 1687 the states of Hungary decreed that the throne, which had hitherto been filled by election, should thenceforward be hereditary in the male heirs of the house of Hapsburg; and in 1723, the diet, by agreeing to the Pragmatic sanction of Charles III. of Hungary, (the Emperor Charles VI. of Germany,) extended the right of succession to the female descendants of that prince. These two measures were intended, and calculated, to perpetuate the union of the two crowns in the same person. The order of succession to the crown of Hungary was thus definitively settled by statute, and could not legally be departed from, unless with the concurrence both of the diet and of the sovereign. So long, therefore, as the crown of Austria was transmitted in the same order of succession as that in which the crown of Hungary had been settled, the union would be preserved; but any deviation in Austria from the order fixed by law in Hungary would lead to a separation of the crowns, unless the Hungarian diet could be induced to consent to a new settlement. Thus we have seen the crowns of Great Britain and Hanover united for four generations, and separated in the fifth, because one was settled on heirs male or female, the other on heirs male only. An attempt has been made, with reference to recent events, to found on the Pragmatic Sanction pretensions that might derogate from the absolute independence of Hungary; but the articles of the Hungarian diet[31] of 1790 appear to be fatal to any such pretensions. By Article 10 of that year it is declared, that "Hungary is a country free and independent in her entire system of legislation and of government; that she is not subject to any other people, or any other state, but that she shall have her own separate existence, and her own constitution, and shall consequently be governed by kings crowned according to her national laws and customs." By Article 12 of the same diet it was declared, that the power to enact, to interpret, and to abrogate the laws, was vested conjointly in the king, legitimately crowned, and the diet; and that no attempt should ever be made to govern by edicts or arbitrary acts. By Article 13 it was decreed, that the diet should be called together once every three years at the least. By Article 19 it was declared, that imposts could not be levied at the king's pleasure, but must be freely voted by the two tables (houses) from one diet to another. All these acts received the formal assent of Leopold II., and thus became statutes of the kingdom.