Roman Catholic Relief Bills - England

England

Under laws passed in the reign of Elizabeth I, any English subject receiving Holy Orders of the Church of Rome and coming to England was guilty of high treason, and any one who aided or sheltered him was guilty of a capital felony. It was likewise made treason to be reconciled to the Church of Rome and to procure others to be reconciled. Any official, civil and ecclesiastical, who refused to take the Oath of Supremacy denying the Pope's spiritual jurisdiction could also be tried for treason. Parents were prohibited from giving their children education in the Catholic faith.

Giving Mass was punishable by a fine of 200 marks, while attending Mass was subject to a fine of 100 marks. The statutes of recusancy punished nonconformity with the Established Church by a fine of twenty pounds per lunar month during which the parish church was not attended, there being thirteen of such months in the year. Such non-attendances constituted recusancy in the proper sense of the term, and originally affected all, whether Catholic or otherwise, who did not conform.

In 1593 by 35 Eliz. c. 2, the consequences of such non-conformity were limited to Popish recusants. A Papist, convicted of absenting himself from church, became a Popish recusant convict, and besides the monthly fine of twenty pounds, was prohibited from holding any office or employment, from keeping arms in his house, from maintaining actions or suits at law or in equity, from being an executor or a guardian, from presenting to an advowson, from practising the law or physic, and from holding office civil or military. He was likewise subject to the penalties attaching to excommunication, was not permitted to travel five miles (8 km) from his house without licence, under pain of forfeiting all his goods, and might not come to Court under a penalty of one hundred pounds. Other provisions extended similar penalties to married women. Popish recusants convict were, within three months of conviction, either to submit and renounce their papistry, or, if required by four justices, to abjure the realm. If they did not depart, or returned without licence, they were guilty of a capital felony.

The Oath of Allegiance, enacted under James I in 1606 in immediate aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot, required Catholic recusants to declare their loyalty to James. By the Corporation Act 1661, no one could legally be elected to any municipal office unless he had within the year received the Sacrament according to the rite of the Church of England, and likewise, taken the Oath of Supremacy. The first provision excluded all non-conformists; the second Catholics only. The Test Act 1673 imposed on all officers, civil and military, a "Declaration against Transubstantiation", whereby Catholics were debarred from such employment. Five years later, the Test Act 1678 required all members of either House of Parliament, before taking their seats, to make a "Declaration against Popery", denouncing Transubstantiation, the Mass and the invocation of saints as idolatrous.