The Conventicle Act 1664 was an Act of the Parliament of England that forbade conventicles, defined as religious assemblies of more than five people other than an immediate family, outside the auspices of the Church of England and the rubrics of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.
The Act of Uniformity 1662 is an Act of the Parliament of England. It prescribed the form of public prayers, administration of sacraments, and other rites of the Established Church of England, according to the rites and ceremonies prescribed in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Adherence to this was required in order to hold any office in government or the church, although the new version of the Book of Common Prayer prescribed by the Act was so new that most people had never even seen a copy. The Act also required that the Book of Common Prayer "be truly and exactly Translated into the British or Welsh Tongue". It also explicitly required episcopal ordination for all ministers, i.e. deacons, priests and bishops, which had to be reintroduced since the Puritans had abolished many features of the Church during the Civil War. The act did not explicitly encompass the Isle of Man.
The Five Mile Act, or Oxford Act, or Nonconformists Act 1665, was an Act of the Parliament of England, passed in 1665 with the long title "An Act for restraining Non-Conformists from inhabiting in Corporations". It was one of the English penal laws that sought to enforce conformity to the established Church of England, and to expel any who did not conform. It forbade clergymen from living, visiting or preaching within five miles (8 km) of a parish from which they had been expelled, or to come within five miles of any city, town or borough that sends Members to Parliament unless they swore an oath never to resist the king, or attempt to alter the government of Church or State. The latter involved swearing to obey the 1662 prayer book. Thousands of ministers were deprived of a living under this act.
In English history, the penal laws were a series of laws that sought to enforce the State-decreed religious monopoly of the Church of England and, following the 1688 revolution, of Presbyterianism in Scotland, against the continued existence of illegal and underground communities of Catholics, nonjuring Anglicans, and Protestant nonconformists. The Penal laws also imposed various forfeitures, civil penalties, and civil disabilities upon recusants from mandatory attendance at weekly Sunday services of the Established Church. The penal laws in general were repealed in the early 19th-century due to the successful activism of Daniel O'Connell for Catholic Emancipation. Penal actions are civil in nature and were not English common law.
Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech or organization, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or insurrection against, established authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws. Seditious words in writing are seditious libel. A seditionist is one who engages in or promotes the interest of sedition.
Sir Hardress Waller was born in Kent and settled in Ireland during the 1630s. A first cousin of Parliamentarian general William Waller, he fought for Parliament in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, becoming a leading member of the radical element within the New Model Army. In 1649, he signed the death warrant for the Execution of Charles I, and after the Stuart Restoration in 1660 was condemned to death as a regicide.
Seditious libel is a criminal offence under common law of printing written material with seditious purpose – that is, the purpose of bringing contempt upon a political authority. It remains an offence in Canada but has been abolished in England and Wales.
The Sedition Act 1948 was a Singaporean statute law which prohibited seditious acts and speech; and the printing, publication, sale, distribution, reproduction and importation of seditious publications. The essential ingredient of any offence under the Act was the finding of a "seditious tendency", and the intention of the offender is irrelevant. The Act also listed several examples of what is not a seditious tendency, and provides defences for accused persons in a limited number of situations.
The Sedition Act 1948 in Malaysia is a law prohibiting discourse deemed as seditious. The act was originally enacted by the colonial authorities of British Malaya in 1948 to contain the local communist insurgence. The act criminalises speech with "seditious tendency", including that which would "bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against" the government or engender "feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races". The meaning of "seditious tendency" is defined in section 3 of the Sedition Act 1948 and in substance it is similar to the English common law definition of sedition, with modifications to suit local circumstances. The Malaysian definition includes the questioning of certain portions of the Constitution of Malaysia, namely those pertaining to the Malaysian social contract, such as Article 153, which deals with special rights for the bumiputra.
The Rebuilding of London Act 1666 is an Act of the Parliament of England with the long title "An Act for rebuilding the City of London." The Act was passed in February 1667 in the aftermath of the Great Fire of London and drawn up by Sir Matthew Hale. An earlier Act, the Fire of London Disputes Act 1666, had set up a court to settle disputes arising from buildings destroyed by the Fire. This Act regulated the rebuilding, authorized the City of London Corporation to reopen and widen roads, designated the anniversary of the Fire a feast day, and authorized the building of the Monument. A duty of one shilling on a chaldron of coal was imposed to pay for these measures.
The Convention Parliament of England followed the Long Parliament that had finally voted for its own dissolution on 16 March that year. Elected as a "free parliament", i.e. with no oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth or to the monarchy, it was predominantly Royalist in its membership. It assembled for the first time on 25 April 1660.
A conventicle originally meant "an assembly" and was frequently used by ancient writers to mean "a church." At a semantic level, conventicle is a Latinized synonym of the Greek word for church, and references Jesus' promise in Matthew 18:20, "Where two or three are met together in my name."
The Profane Swearing Act 1694 was an Act of the Parliament of England in effect from 24 June 1695 and repealed in 1746. It established a system of fines payable for "suppressing prophane Cursing and Swearing".
Events from the year 1670 in England.
Solomon Eccles (1618–1683), also known as Solomon Eagle, was an English composer. However, he later became an active Quaker and distanced himself from church music.
The Religion Act 1592 or the Seditious Sectaries Act 1592 or the Act Against Puritans 1592 or the Conventicle Act 1593 was an Act of the Parliament of England. The Act imprisoned without bail those over the age of sixteen who failed to attend Church; persuaded others to do the same; denied Queen Elizabeth I's authority in religious matters; and who attended unlawful religious meetings. The Act was cognisable in the Court of High Commission. If, after offending, they did not conform in the next three months, they would be exiled from England forever. The Act fined those who harboured recusants £10 for every month hidden. The Act stated that it would continue no longer than the end of the next session of Parliament. However, the Act was still in effect in 1661, when John Bunyan was tried and convicted for disobedience to it.
The Restoration was the return of the monarchy to Scotland in 1660 after the period of the Commonwealth, and the subsequent three decades of Scottish history until the Revolution and Convention of Estates of 1689. It was part of a wider Restoration in the British Isles that included the return of the Stuart dynasty to the thrones of England and Ireland in the person of Charles II.
The Reformed Presbyterian Global Alliance is a communion of Presbyterians originating in Scotland in 1690 when its members refused to conform to the establishment of the Church of Scotland. The Reformed Presbyterian churches collectively have approximately 9,500 members worldwide in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, France, the United States of America, Canada, Japan, South Sudan, and Australia.
