Act of Parliament | |
Long title | An Act to substitute One Oath for the Oaths of Allegiance, Supremacy, and Abjuration; and for the Relief of Her Majesty's Subjects professing the Jewish Religion |
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Citation | 21 & 22 Vict. c. 48 |
Introduced by | Lord John Russell |
Dates | |
Royal assent | 23 July 1858 |
Repealed | 13 July 1871 |
Other legislation | |
Repealed by | Promissory Oaths Act 1871 |
Relates to | Jews Relief Act 1858 |
Status: Repealed | |
History of passage through Parliament | |
Text of statute as originally enacted |
21 & 22 Vict. c. 48 (informally called the Oaths Bill; long title "An Act to substitute One Oath for the Oaths of Allegiance, Supremacy, and Abjuration; and for the Relief of Her Majesty's Subjects professing the Jewish Religion") was an 1858 Act of the UK Parliament which replaced three separate oaths of office with a single oath of allegiance to the British monarch. Besides an oath of allegiance, those holding public office had previously been required to take the Oath of Supremacy (recognising the monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church of England) and the Oath of Abjuration (opposing Jacobitism).
The 1858 act had special provisions for British Jews and Quakers but did not apply to Roman Catholics MPs, for whom the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 still applied. The act was passed at the same time as the Jews Relief Act 1858 (21 & 22 Vict. c. 49), which removed other civic disabilities. An 1859 amendment (22 Vict. c. 10) replaced the wording of the Quaker affirmation. The Parliamentary Oaths Act 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c. 19) changed the oath for legislators taking seats in the Commons or Lords.
The 1858 and 1859 acts were repealed and replaced by the Promissory Oaths Act 1871 (34 & 35 Vict. c. 48).
The Irish Oath of Allegiance was a controversial provision in the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which Irish TDs and Senators were required to swear before taking their seats in Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann before the Constitution Act 1933 was passed on 3 May 1933. The controversy surrounding the Oath was one of the principal issues that led to the Irish Civil War of 1922–23 between supporters and opponents of the Treaty.
The Test Acts were a series of penal laws originating in Restoration England, passed by the Parliament of England, that served as a religious test for public office and imposed various civil disabilities on Catholics and nonconformist Protestants.
The Oath of Supremacy required any person taking public or church office in the Kingdom of England, or in its subordinate Kingdom of Ireland, to swear allegiance to the monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church. Failure to do so was to be treated as treasonable. The Oath of Supremacy was originally imposed by King Henry VIII of England through the Act of Supremacy 1534, but repealed by his elder daughter, Queen Mary I of England, and reinstated under Henry's other daughter and Mary's half-sister, Queen Elizabeth I of England, under the Act of Supremacy 1558. The Oath was later extended to include Members of Parliament (MPs) and people studying at universities. In 1537, the Irish Supremacy Act was passed by the Parliament of Ireland, establishing Henry VIII as the supreme head of the Church of Ireland. As in England, a commensurate Oath of Supremacy was required for admission to offices.
Jewish emancipation in the United Kingdom was the culmination in the 19th century of efforts over several hundred years to loosen the legal restrictions set in place on England's Jewish population. Between 1833 and 1890 Parliament passed a series of laws that placed male Jews in the United Kingdom on an equal legal footing with the kingdom's other emancipated males.
The Act of Supremacy 1558, sometimes referred to as the Act of Supremacy 1559, is an act of the Parliament of England, which replaced the original Act of Supremacy 1534, and passed under the auspices of Elizabeth I. The 1534 act was issued by Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, which arrogated ecclesiastical authority to the monarchy, but which had been repealed by Mary I. Along with the Act of Uniformity 1558, the act made up what is generally referred to as the Elizabethan Religious Settlement.
An Act to prevent the further Growth of Popery was an Act of the Parliament of Ireland that was passed in 1704 designed to suppress Roman Catholicism in Ireland ("Popery"). William Edward Hartpole Lecky called it the most notorious of the Irish Penal Laws.
The Oath of Allegiance is a promise to be loyal to the British monarch, and their heirs and successors, sworn by certain public servants in the United Kingdom, and also by newly naturalised subjects in citizenship ceremonies. The current standard wording of the oath of allegiance is set out in the Promissory Oaths Act 1868.
The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, also known as the Catholic Emancipation Act 1829, removed the sacramental tests that barred Roman Catholics in the United Kingdom from Parliament and from higher offices of the judiciary and state. It was the culmination of a fifty-year process of Catholic emancipation which had offered Catholics successive measures of "relief" from the civil and political disabilities imposed by Penal Laws in both Great Britain and in Ireland in the seventeenth, and early eighteenth, centuries.
Events from the year 1787 in Ireland.
The Papists Act 1778 or the Catholic Relief Act 1778 is an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain and was the first Act for Roman Catholic relief. Later in 1778 it was also enacted by the Parliament of Ireland as the Leases for Lives Act 1777, also known as Gardiner's Act or the Catholic Relief Act 1777.
The English Protestant Reformation was imposed by the English Crown, and submission to its essential points was exacted by the State with post-Reformation oaths. With some solemnity, by oath, test, or formal declaration, English churchmen and others were required to assent to the religious changes, starting in the sixteenth century and continuing for more than 250 years.
The Sacramental Test Act 1828 was an Act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It repealed the requirement that government officials take communion in the Church of England. Sir Robert Peel took the lead for the Tory government in the repeal and collaborated with Anglican Church leaders.
The Jews Relief Act 1858, also called the Jewish Disabilities Act, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which removed previous barriers to Jews entering Parliament, a step in Jewish emancipation in the United Kingdom.
The Toleration Act 1688, also referred to as the Act of Toleration or the Toleration Act 1689, was an Act of the Parliament of England. Passed in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, it received royal assent on 24 May 1689.
Oaths Act is a stock short title used in Canada, Malaysia and the United Kingdom for legislation relating to oaths and affirmation.
The Promissory Oaths Act 1871 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that repealed for the United Kingdom enactments relating to promissory oaths from 1346 to 1867 which had ceased to be in force or had become necessary. The act was intended, in particular, to facilitate the preparation of the revised edition of the statutes, then in progress.
The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793 was an Act of the Parliament of Ireland, implicitly repealing some of the Irish Penal Laws and relieving Roman Catholics of certain political, educational, and economic disabilities.
The Plantation Act 1740 or the Naturalization Act 1740 are common names used for an act of the British Parliament that was officially titled An Act for Naturalizing such foreign Protestants and others therein mentioned, as are settled or shall settle in any of His Majesty's Colonies in America.
The Anniversary Days Observance Act 1859 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which repealed several laws mandating "political services" or "state services": observance by the Church of England and Church of Ireland of certain anniversaries from 17th-century political history.