The Popery Act 1627 (3 Chas. 1, c. 3) was an Act of Parliament passed by the Parliament of England. Its long title is "An Act to restrain the passing or sending of any to be Popishly bred beyond the Seas".[1][2] This was the only penal law to be passed during the reign of Charles I.[1]
The Act declared:
Forasmuch as divers ill affected Persons to the true Religion within this Realm, had sent their Children into Foreign Parts to be bred up in Popery, notwithstanding the Restraint of it by 1 Jac. 1. It was enacted, That that Law should be put in Execution; and further, that if any Person or Persons, being Subjects, should pass over, or go, convey, or send, or cause to be sent or conveyed, any Children, or other Person beyond Seas, to the Intent and Purpose to enter into, or be resident or trained up in any Priory, Abbey, Nunnery, Popish University, Colledge or School, or Houses of Jesuits, Priests, or in any Private Popish Family, and shall be there, by any Jesuite, Seminary Priest, Friar, Monk, or other Popish Person instructed, perswaded[sic] or strengthned[sic] in the Popish Religion in any sort to profess the same; or should convey or send, or cause to be conveyed, or sent any sum or other thing towards the maintenance of any already gone or sent under any Pretence of Charity, or otherwise, &c. is disabled to sue, to be Commitee[sic] of any Ward, or Executor or Administrator; is not capable of any Legacy or Deed of Gift, or to bear any Office within the Realm; forfeits all his Goods and Chattels, forfeits his Lands and other real Estate for his Life. In case of Conformity, these Penalties are not to be incurred; and in case the Lands have been seised[sic], they shall be restored.[2]
1 2 Samuel Blackerby, An historical account of making the penal laws by the papists against the Protestants, and by the Protestants against the papists wherein the true ground and reason of making the laws is given, the papists most barbarous usuage [sic] of the Protestants here in England under a colour of law set forth, and the Reformation vindicated from the imputation of being cruel and bloody, unjustly cast upon it by those of the Romish Communion (1689), p. 120.
In English history, the penal laws were a series of laws that sought to uphold the establishment of the Church of England against Catholicism and Protestant nonconformists by imposing various forfeitures, civil penalties, and civil disabilities upon these dissenters. The penal laws in general were repealed in the early 19th century during the process of Catholic Emancipation. Penal actions are civil in nature and were not English common law.
The Test Acts were a series of English penal laws that served as a religious test for public office and imposed various civil disabilities on Roman Catholics and nonconformists. The underlying principle was that only people taking communion in the established Church of England were eligible for public employment, and the severe penalties pronounced against recusants, whether Catholic or nonconformist, were affirmations of this principle. Similar laws were introduced in Scotland with respect to the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. In practice nonconformists were often exempted from some of these laws through the regular passage of Acts of Indemnity: in particular, the Indemnity Act 1727 relieved Nonconformists from the requirements in the Test Act 1673 and the Corporation Act 1661 that public office holders must have taken the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in an Anglican church. Except at Oxbridge, where nonconformists and Catholics could not matriculate (Oxford) or graduate (Cambridge) until 1871, they were seldom enforced after 1800 and the Tory government repealed them in 1828 with little controversy.
The words Popery and Papism are mainly historical pejorative words in the English language for Roman Catholicism, once frequently used by Protestants and Eastern Orthodox Christians to label their Roman Catholic opponents, who differed from them in accepting the authority of the Pope over the Christian Church. The words were popularised during the English Reformation (1532–1559), when the Church of England broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and divisions emerged between those who rejected Papal authority and those who continued to follow Rome. The words are recognised as pejorative; they have been in widespread use in Protestant writings until the mid-nineteenth century, including use in some laws that remain in force in the United Kingdom.
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws. Requirements to abjure (renounce) the temporal and spiritual authority of the pope and transubstantiation placed major burdens on Roman Catholics.
The Registration Act was an Act of the Parliament of Ireland passed in 1704, which required all "Popish" priests to register at their local magistrates' court, to pay two 50-pound bonds to ensure good behavior, and to stay in the county where they registered.
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 Protestant Ascendancy, also known simply as the Ascendancy, was the political, economic, and social domination of Ireland between the 17th century and the early 20th century by a minority of landowners, Protestant clergy, and members of the professions, all members of the Established Church. The Ascendancy excluded other groups from politics and the elite, most numerous among them Roman Catholics but also members of the Presbyterian and other Protestant denominations, along with non-Christians such as Jews, until the Reform Acts (1832–1928).
The Indemnity and Oblivion Act 1660 was an Act of the Parliament of England, the long title of which is "An Act of Free and General Pardon, Indemnity, and Oblivion". This act was a general pardon for everyone who had committed crimes during the English Civil War and subsequent Commonwealth period, with the exception of certain crimes such as murder, piracy, buggery, rape and witchcraft, and people named in the act such as those involved in the regicide of Charles I. It also said that no action was to be taken against those involved at any later time, and that the Interregnum was to be legally forgotten.
In the history of Ireland, the Penal Laws was a series of laws imposed in an attempt to force Irish Catholics and to lesser extent Protestant dissenter planters and Quakers to accept the established Church of Ireland. These laws notably included the Education Act 1695, the Banishment Act 1697, the Registration Act 1704, the Popery Acts 1704 and 1709, and the Disenfranchising Act 1728. The majority of the penal laws were removed in the period 1778–1793 with the last of them of any significance being removed in 1829. Notwithstanding those previous enactments, the Government of Ireland Act 1920 contained an all-purpose provision in section 5 removing any that might technically still then be in existence.
The Popery Act 1698 was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of England enacted in 1700. The long title of the Act was "An Act for the further preventing the Growth of Popery".
The Roman Catholic Relief Bills were a series of measures introduced over time in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries before the Parliaments of Great Britain and the United Kingdom to remove the restrictions and prohibitions imposed on British and Irish Catholics during the English Reformation. These restrictions had been introduced to enforce the separation of the English church from the Catholic Church which began in 1529 under Henry VIII.
The Accession Declaration Act 1910 is an Act which was passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to alter the declaration that the Sovereign is required to make at their accession to the throne as first required by the Bill of Rights of 1689. In it, they solemnly declare themself to be faithful to the Protestant faith. The altered declaration is as follows:
"I [here insert the name of the Sovereign] do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God profess, testify, and declare that I am a faithful Protestant, and that I will, according to the true intent of the enactments which secure the Protestant succession to the Throne of my Realm, uphold and maintain the said enactments to the best of my powers according to law."
Anti-Catholicism in the United Kingdom dates back to Roman times. Attacks on the Church from a Protestant angle mostly began with the English and Irish Reformations which were launched by King Henry VIII and the Scottish Reformation which was led by John Knox. Within England, the Act of Supremacy 1534 declared the English crown to be "the only supreme head on earth of the Church in England" in place of the Pope. Any act of allegiance to the latter was considered treasonous because the papacy claimed both spiritual and political power over its followers. Ireland was brought under direct English control starting in 1536 during the Tudor conquest of Ireland. The Scottish Reformation in 1560 abolished Catholic ecclesiastical structures and rendered Catholic practice illegal in Scotland. Today, anti-Catholicism remains common in the United Kingdom, with particular relevance in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
An act against Jesuits, seminary priests, and such other like disobedient persons, also known as the Jesuits, etc. Act 1584, was an Act of the Parliament of England passed during the English Reformation. The Act commanded all Roman Catholic priests to leave the country within 40 days or they would be punished for high treason, unless within the 40 days they swore an oath to obey the Queen. Those who harboured them, and all those who knew of their presence and failed to inform the authorities, would be fined and imprisoned for felony, or if the authorities wished to make an example of them, they might be executed for treason.
The Papists Act 1715 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. The Act required Roman Catholics who did not take the oath of fidelity to register their property.
Archibald Davidson was a Scottish Minister, who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1788 and was Principal of Glasgow University.
John Arnold, widely known as John Arnold of Monmouthshire, was a Welsh Protestant politician and Whig MP. He was one of the most prominent people in Monmouthshire in the late 17th century. A stark anti-Catholic, he was a notable figure during the Popish plot and the suppression of Catholicism in the country. Arnold represented the constituencies around Monmouth and Southwark in Parliament in the 1680s and 1690s. His strong anti-Catholic beliefs and insurgences against Catholic priests made him an unpopular and controversial figure amongst his peers and in his native Monmouthshire. In his later years, his behaviour became increasingly eccentric, and he was widely believed to have faked an attempt on his own life. Amongst his associates were Titus Oates and Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury.
The Protestation Returns of 1641–1642 are lists of English males over the age of 18 who took, or did not take, an oath of allegiance "to live and die for the true Protestant religion, the liberties and rights of subjects and the privilege of Parliaments." These lists were usually compiled by parish, or township, within hundred, or wapentake. They are of importance to local historians for estimating populations, to genealogists trying to find an ancestor immediately before the English Civil War and for scholars interested in surname distributions.
The Succession to the Crown Act 2013 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that altered the laws of succession to the British throne in accordance with the 2011 Perth Agreement. The Act replaced male-preference primogeniture with absolute primogeniture for those in the line of succession born after 28 October 2011, which means the eldest child, regardless of gender, precedes any siblings. The Act also repealed the Royal Marriages Act 1772, ended disqualification of a person who married a Roman Catholic from succession, and removed the requirement for those outside the first six persons in line to the throne to seek the Sovereign's approval to marry. It came into force on 26 March 2015, at the same time as the other Commonwealth realms implemented the Perth Agreement in their own laws.
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