English Religious Laws passed from 1660 to 1727

Act	Effect	Date passed	Date repealed	Duration	Comments
Corporation 13 Car II, stat. 2. c.1	Required oaths and communion for officers	1661	1828	167	Penalties reduced by Indemnity Act; Final repeal 1871
Licensing 14 Car. II. c. 33	Publications must be approved by Archbishop or Bishop	1662	Lapsed 1679; renewed 1685; not renewed 1695	Intermittent To 1695	College Physicians had power to censor medical works until 1695
Uniformity [a] 13 & 14 Car. II. c.4	Ejected nonconformist ministers by 1664	1662		To present	Bartholomew Act
Uniformity [b]	Required teachers to take communion and have Bishop’s License	1662	1689	27
Uniformity [c]	Required oath 39 Articles universities	1662	1871	207	Changed in 1772: Cambridge graduates could declare membership of Church of England instead of subscribing to Articles. Irish Act of 1793 allowed non-Anglican students to attend Trinity College
Quaker 13 &14 Car. II. c. 1	Banned Quaker assemblies, required oaths	1662	1689 1812	27	Replaced in effect by Conventicle Act 1664, modified by Toleration Act, repealed 1812
Conventicle [1] 16 Car. II. c. 1	Banned religious gatherings of more than 5, expired in 1668	1664	(1668)	4	Replaced in 1670
Five Mile 17 Car. II. c. 2	Banned ejected ministers and unlicensed preachers within 5 miles of towns	1665	1689, 1812	24+	Suspended by Toleration Act, repealed in 1812
Conventicle [2] 22 Car. II. c. 1	Banned religious gatherings of more than 5	1670	1689, 1812	19+	Suspended by Toleration Act, repealed in 1812
Test 25 Car. II. c. 2	Civil/military officers must take communion, renounce Mass, swear Corporation oaths, aimed at Catholics, also affected other Nonconformists	1673	1828: Sacramental Test Act 1829: Catholic Relief Act	156	Penalties reduced by Indemnity Acts of 1728 etc. Jews relieved in 1858 Atheists relieved in 1886
Papist’s Disabling 30 Car. II stat. 2. c.1	Barred Catholics from Parliament	1678	1829	151
Toleration 1 Gul. & Mar. c. 18	Suspended penal laws agt. Nonconformists, allowed Trinitarians to license chapels, allowed Quakers to make declarations instead of oaths	1689		To present	Modified in 1779
Blasphemy 9 Will. 3. c. 35	Penalties incl. death for arians, socinians and atheists	1697	1813	116	Penalties removed 1813; repealed in 1967
Occasional Conformity 10 Anne c. 6	Barred Dissenters from taking Anglican communion to qualify for office	1711	1718	7
Schism 13 Anne c. 7	Barred Dissenters from keeping schools	1714	1718	4
Indemnity 1 Geo. 2. c. 23	Reduced penalties under Test and Corporation Acts; allowed Dissenters to hold offices	1727		Intermit-tent	Became annual from 1756 until repeal of Test and Corporation Acts

Some sources used in compiling this chart:

Online:

John Gascoigne, ‘Jebb, John (1736–1786)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2005 http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14680, accessed 12 Sept 2014

“Catholics and Trinity College Dublin, Hansard, English House of Commons Debate, HC Deb 08 May 1834 vol 23 cc761-7,

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1834/may/08/catholics-and-trinity-college-dublin

Institute of Historical Research and History of Parliament Trust: British History Online website: Calendar of State Papers Domestic, Charles II, The Calendars of State Papers for James II, William and Mary, Anne and George I are all at the same site.

Institute of Historical Research and History of Parliament Trust, British History Online website: John Raithby (ed.) Statutes of the Realm: volume 5 - 1628-80 (1819)

Institute of Historical Research and History of Parliament Trust, British History Online website: John Raithby (ed.) Statutes of the Realm: volume 6 - 1685-94 (1819)

Wikipedia:

List of Acts of the Parliament of England, 1660–1699

List of Acts of the Parliament of England, 1700–1706

List of Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain, 1707–1719

List of Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain, 1720–1739

Penal Law

Books:

C. Braithwaite, The Second Period of Quakerism (London: 1919)

Heather Ellis, Generational Conflict and University Reform: Oxford in the Age of Revolution (Leiden: 2012)

H. S. Q. Henriques, The Jews and the English Law (Oxford: 1908)

J. P. Kenyon, The Stuart Constitution 1603-1688: Documents and Commentary (Cambridge: 1969)

Thomas Erskine May, The Constitutional History of England since the Accession of George Third 1760-1860, vol. 2 (New York: 1866)

David Ogg, England in the Reign of Charles II (2^nd. ed., rpt. Oxford, London and New York: 1934, 1972)

K.R.M. Short “The English Indemnity Acts 1726-1867” Church History (Sept. 1973) 42, no. 3: 366-376

John Spurr, The Post-Reformation: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain, 1603-1714 (Harlow, Essex: 2006), pp.145-152

E. Neville Williams, The Eighteenth Century Constitution, 1688-1815 (Cambridge and New York: 1960)

notes: I thank Alan Brooks for commenting on this table; all mistakes, omissions etc.

are solely my responsibility

After creating this, I discovered a very similar Timeline of Key Legislation and Events prepared by David L. Wykes on the Dr. Williams’

Centre for Dissenting Studies website—I really wish I had seen this earlier! ]

Margaret DeLacy, 2012

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.