How many penal laws were there

The pope responded with a grant of 27, livres for the six months ending January Although the majority fled to France, most of the Catholic countries of Europe received some of these refugees.

Mary of Modena calculated that about regular priests of the Irish mission fled from Ireland at that time, and as there were about secular, or parish, priests, there were in upwards of 1, Catholic clergy in Ireland. However, the rulers of Catholic Europe could, in view of their own inflexible attitude towards their protestant subjects, do nothing except lodge diplomatic protests. Louis XIV, in particular, could do little in view of his own recent treatment of the Huguenots, so he simply instructed his envoy, Count Tallard, to do the best that he could for the Irish without giving the English government any opportunity to make a bargain on behalf of the Huguenots.

Both Louis XIV and the Emperor Leopold I, the head of the Austrian branch of the Hapsburgs, were deeply involved in the impending question of the Spanish succession and Ireland was peripheral to their immediate interests.

The emperor instructed his envoy, Count Auersperg, to make a strong protest to King William, pointing out that while the king was tolerant he was also mortal. Ireland was not high on William III's agenda either, but he was personally tolerant, and from the time of the Treaty of Limerick onwards he had attempted to compromise by consenting to the demands of the Irish parliament for penal legislation while mitigating its application whenever possible.

In any case the application of legislation was far from axiomatic in the religious as well as the civil sphere of everyday activity. Much of it in the first instance lay in the hands of the unpaid Justices of the Peace, whose views could be coloured by threats or local interest or sentiment, and over whose actions the central government could exercise only a limited control.

As early as Lord Lieutenant Rochester commented in a proclamation on the evasions of the Banishment Act that:.

We cannot but take notice of the general neglect of the several magistrates and ministers of justice in this kingdom and the officers of the revenue in the several ports who have been wanting in their duty in putting the laws in execution by whose neglect chiefly the several offenders are emboldened to continue, come or return into this kingdom.

The laws encouraged the emergence of a small number of professional priest-hunters. Among those who acquired prominence in this profession were Edward Tyrrell, executed for bigamy in , and a Portuguese Jew named John Garzia who, to the embarrassment of the government managed, in , to catch Archbishop Byrne of Dublin.

These unsavoury individuals were the outcasts of society and usually went in fear of its vengeance; for example, in , Henry Oxenard was nearly stoned to death by the Dublin mob.

The accession of the devoutly Anglican Anne confirmed the emperor's fears. To the bigotry of the English High Church party were added the fears and exclusivity of their Irish co-religionists.

In a further penal act extended the penalties already imposed on the hierarchy to every Catholic priest coming into Ireland after 1 January The effect of a rigorous application of this act, in view of the previous banishment of the bishops, would have eventually been to cut off the supply of priests, thus making it impossible for Catholics to exercise their religion.

This aspect of the bill worried the queen, who felt, with some justification, that it might be 'construed to infringe the articles of Limerick'. To meet her objections the bill was in the first instance limited to a period of 14 years, but despite its infringement of the articles, it was made perpetual in The act was followed in by a further act, 4 Anne, c.

No priest was to have a curate. But, once registered, a priest was free to carry out his normal duties. His congregation could attend church openly. One thousand and eighty-nine secular priests registered under this act; these included some regulars and bishops. Registration revealed that there were at this time priests in Leinster, in Munster, in Connacht and in Ulster.

The impact of this legislation on the hierarchy was immediate and severe, if comparatively short-term. In Bishop Piers of Waterford, who had left Ireland in , was acting as assistant to the Archbishop of Sens, and he informed Cardinal Gualterio that there were only two bishops in Ireland - one infirm and the other in gaol. This assessment reflected the isolation of the Irish church at this time as, while Archbishop Comerford was indeed ill and Bishop Donnelly, the administrator of Armagh, was in prison, Bishop Rossiter was still alive and the recently consecrated Archbishop Byrne of Dublin was taking an increasingly active role in the administration of the church.

Although the ecclesiastical structure of the church was to remain weak for some years, particularly after Bishop Rossiter died in and Archbishop Comerford in , the restoration of the hierarchy had in fact begun with the consecration of Archbishop Byrne in III Eng. Anne had still to reign and, as James II and William III had shown in different ways, the personality and the inclinations of the monarch were important. Many believed, incorrectly in the event, that Anne might favour her half-brother rather than a German electress cousin and her descendants.

The English and Scottish crowns were still united only by the accident of birth, and the Scots had made it clear that any agreement to a common successor was far from a foregone conclusion. All of these uncertainties had religious as well as secular overtones, and they gave politics a frenetic quality and party conflicts a bitterness that affected all three kingdoms of the British Isles during the reign of Queen Anne.

In Scotland, the union of the parliaments to guarantee a united succession had a price, as the Scots made very clear. At the very least they would require the security and establishment of the Presbyterian Church as the Church of Scotland; also they insisted on the retention of the Scottish legal system, which differed in both principle and procedure from that of England; significantly, they sought an economic as well as a parliamentary union to give Scotland full access to England's overseas possessions and markets.

The English considered this a hard bargain, but they had no option but to consent. Had Ireland been in a position to make similar terms, the insecurity, which expressed itself in intolerance, might have been allayed. But it is important to remember that Ireland, with its Crown already 'inseparably attached' to the English Crown, had little to offer.

The Irish Catholics, weakened by a combination of civil war and the suspicion of disloyalty to the protestant succession, were in no position to exact even basic legal toleration, while protestant Nonconformists, whose support was assured, were soon to feel the weight of the official displeasure that could not with impunity be exerted against the Scots.

The reign of George I saw the beginning of a series of indemnity acts stretching throughout the century and aimed at a brief and limited lifting of restrictions against Dissenters, particularly should they be needed for defence.

The Act was passed in an atmosphere of increasing crisis. The queen did not enjoy good health, and with each year the succession question assumed a greater dominance in the domestic affairs of the British Isles.

On 10 July James Edward Stuart had celebrated his eighteenth birthday and come of age. England was still at war with France, and in the uneasy aftermath of the Act of Union 6 Anne, c. Nevertheless, the queen remained adamant in her refusal to invite the Hanoverian electoral prince to visit his putative inheritance. Furthermore, although in July Marlborough defeated the French at Oudenarde, his duchess had already lost much of her influence with the queen, whose final personal tragedy occurred in October when her husband, Prince George of Denmark, to whom she was sincerely attached, suddenly died.

It was against this background of uncertainty that 8 Anne, c. Registered priests were now required to take the oath of abjuration. The terms of the oath were unacceptable to Catholics and had been condemned by the pope. Nevertheless, failure to comply with this requirement placed the secular clergy in the same position as the regulars.

Despite this there was a mass refusal, as only 33 of the over 1, known clergy were prepared to take the oath. The stand of the overwhelming majority of the clergy made this part of the act inoperable, although it also made the position of all the clergy legally vulnerable. As the accession of Queen Anne had increased the influence of the High Church party in England, the position of the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland was also strengthened.

They became increasingly determined to consolidate their hold as a dominant elite, particularly through their control of the landed property of the country.

Without any intention or wish to challenge Queen Anne's authority, or the provisions of the Act of Settlement, many protestants including some Presbyterian ministers as well as Catholics could not in conscience agree that James Edward 'hath not any right'.

Undoubtedly at least some of the conversions that resulted from this act and its confirmation in were formal rather than conscientious. He could not hold a commission in the army or navy, or be a private soldier.

No Catholic could hold any office of honour or emolument in the state, or be a member of any corporation, or vote for members of the Commons, or, if he were a peer, sit or vote in the Lords. Almost all these personal disabilities were equally enforced by law against any Protestant who married a Catholic wife. They could not be governors, school-masters, guardians or factors, and any one who employed them as such was fined a thousand merks.

They were fined five hundred merks for teaching "any art, science or exercise of any sort". Any Protestant who became a Catholic forfeited his whole hereditable estate to the nearest Protestant heir.

The first repeal of the Penal Code was effected by the Act for the relief of Scottish Catholics , which received the royal assent in May, , and practically complete liberty was granted to them under the provisions of the Catholic Emancipation Act of In Ireland Although the penal laws of Ireland were passed by a Protestant Parliament and aimed at depriving Catholics of their faith , such laws were not the outcome of religious motives only.

They often came from a desire to possess the lands of the Irish , from impatience at their long resistance, from the contempt of a ruling for a subject race. The English Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy, making Henry head of the Church ; but the Irish Parliament was less compliant, and did not pass the bill till the legislative powers of the representatives of the clergy had been taken away.

And though the Act of Supremacy was accepted by so many Irish chiefs, they were not followed by the clergy or people in their apostasy. The suppression of monasteries followed entailing the loss of so much property and even of many lives. Yet little progress was made with the new doctrines either in Henry's reign or in that of his successor, and Mary's restoration of the Faith led the Protestant Elizabeth to again resort to penal laws.

In the Irish Parliament passed both the Act of Supremacy and the Act of Uniformity, the former prescribing to all officers the Oath of Supremacy, the latter prohibiting the Mass and commanding the public use of the Book of Common Prayer. Whoever refused the Oath of Supremacy was dismissed from office, and whoever refused to attend the Protestant service was fined 12 pence for each offence. A subsequent viceregal proclamation ordered all priests to leave Dublin and prohibited the use of images, candles, and beads.

For some time these Acts and proclamations were not rigorously enforced; but after , when Elizabeth was excommunicated by the pope , toleration ceased; and the hunting down of the Earl of Desmond, the desolation of Munster, the torturing of O'Hurley and others, showed how merciless the queen and her ministers could be.

Elizabeth disliked Parliaments and had but two in her reign in Ireland. She governed by proclamation, as did her successor, James, and it was under a proclamation that the blood of O'Devany , Bishop of Down, was shed. In the next reign there were periods of toleration followed by the false promises of Strafford and the attempted spoliation of Connaught, until at last the Catholics took up arms. Cromwell disliked Parliaments as much as Elizabeth or James, and when he had extinguished the Rebellion of , he abolished the Irish Parliament, giving Ireland a small representation at Westminster.

It was by Acts of this Westminster Parliament that the Cromwellian settlement was carried out, and that so many Catholics were outlawed. As for ecclesiastics , no mercy was shown them under Cromwellian rule. They were ordered to leave Ireland , and put to death if they refused, or deported to the Arran Isles or to Barbadoes, and those who sheltered them at home were liable to the penalty of death.

To such an extent was the persecution carried that the Catholic churches were soon in ruins, a thousand priests were driven into exile, and not a single bishop remained in Ireland but the old and helpless Bishop of Kilmore. With the accession of Charles II the Irish Catholics looked for a restoration of lands and liberties; but the hopes raised by the Act of Settlement were finally dissipated by the Act of Explanation , and the Catholics , plundered by the Cromwellians, were denied even the justice of a trial.

The English Parliament at the same time prohibited the importation into England of Irish cattle, sheep, or pigs. The king favoured toleration of Catholicity , but was overruled by the bigotry of the Parliament in England and of the viceroy, Ormond, in Ireland ; and if the reign of Charles saw some toleration, it also saw the judicial murder of Venerable Oliver Plunkett and a proclamation by Ormond in , ordering that all priests should leave the country, and that all Catholic churches and convents should be closed.

The triumph of the Catholics under James II was short-lived. But even when William of Orange had triumphed, toleration of Catholicity was expected.

For the Treaty of Limerick gave the Catholics "such privileges as they enjoyed in the reign of Charles II"; and William was to obtain from the Irish Parliament a further relaxation of the penal laws in existence. The treaty was soon broken. The English Parliament, presuming to legislate for Ireland , enacted that no one should sit in the Irish Parliament without taking the Oath of Supremacy and subscribing to a declaration against Transubstantiation ; and the Irish Parliament, filled with slaves and bigots, accepted this legislation : Catholics were thus excluded; and in spite of the declared wishes of King William, the Irish Parliament not only refused to relax the Penal Laws in existence but embarked on fresh penal legislation.

Session after session for nearly fifty years, new and more galling fetters were forged, until at last the Penal Code was complete, and well merited the description of Burke: as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a feeble people and the debasement in them of human nature itself as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.

All bishops , deans, vicars-general, and friars were to leave the country and if they returned, to be put to death. Secular priests at home could remain if they were registered; in , however, they were required to take an oath of abjuration which no priest could conscientiously take, so that registration ceased to be a protection. They could not set up schools at home nor resort to Catholic schools abroad, nor could they receive legacies for Catholic charities, nor have on their churches steeple, cross, or bell.

The laity were no better off than the clergy in the matter of civil rights. They could not set up Catholic schools , nor teach in such, nor go abroad to Catholic schools. They were excluded from Parliament, from the corporations, from the army and navy, from the legal profession, and from all civil offices. They could not act as sheriffs, or under sheriffs, or as jurors, or even as constables.

They could not have more than two Catholic apprentices in their trade; they could not carry arms, nor own a horse worth more than 5 pounds; they were excluded even from residence in the larger corporate towns.

To bury their dead in an old ruined abbey or monastery involved a penalty of ten pounds. A Catholic workman refusing to work on Catholic holy days was to be whipped; and there was the same punishment for those who made pilgrimages to holy wells. No Catholic could act as guardian to an infant, nor as director of the Bank of Ireland ; nor could he marry a Protestant , and the priest who performed such a marriage ceremony was to be put to death.

A Catholic could not acquire land, nor buy it, nor hold a mortgage on it; and the Catholic landlord was bound at death to leave his estate to his children in equal shares.

During life, if the wife or son of such became a Protestant , she or he at once obtained separate maintenance. The law presumed every Catholic to be faithless, disloyal, and untruthful, assumed him to exist only to be punished, and the ingenuity of the Legislature was exhausted in discovering new methods of repression.

Viceroys were constantly appealed to to give no countenance to Popery; magistrates, to execute the penal laws; degraded Irishmen called priest-hunters were rewarded for spying upon their priests , and degraded priests who apostatized were rewarded with a government pension. The wife was thus encouraged to disobey her husband, the child to flout his parents , the friend to turn traitor to his friend. These Protestant legislators in possession of Catholic lands wished to make all Catholics helpless and poor.

Without bishops they must soon be without priests , and without schools they must necessarily go to the Protestant schools. These hopes however proved vain. Students went to foreign colleges, and bishops came from abroad, facing imprisonment and death.

The schoolmaster taught under a sheltering hedge, and the priest said Mass by stealth watched over by the people and in spite of priest-hunter and penal laws. In other respects the Penal Laws succeeded.

They made the Catholics helpless, ignorant , and poor, without the strength to rebel, the hope of redress, or even the courage to complain. At last the tide turned. Too poor to excite the cupidity of their oppressors, too feeble to rebel, the Catholics had nevertheless shown that they would not become Protestants ; and the repression of a feeble people, merely for the sake of repression, had tarnished the name of England , and alienated her friends among the Catholic nations.

In these circumstances the Irish Parliament began to retrace its steps, and concessions were made, slowly and grudgingly. At first the Penal Laws ceased to be rigorously enforced, and then in , Catholics were allowed to take leases of unreclaimed bog for sixty-one years.

Three years later they were allowed to substitute an Oath of Allegiance for the Oath of Supremacy; and in Gardiner's Act allowed them to take leases of land for years, and also allowed Catholic landlords to leave their estates to one son, instead of having, as hitherto, to divide between all.

In a further Act enabled Catholics to set up schools , with the leave of the Protestant bishop of the place, enabling them also to own horses in the same way as Protestants , and further permitting bishops and priests to reside in Ireland. Catholics were also allowed to act as guardians to children. Grattan favoured complete equality between Catholics and Protestants , but the bigots in Parliament were too strong, and among them were the so-called patriot leaders, Charlemont and Flood.

Not till was there a further Act allowing Catholics to marry Protestants , to practise at the bar, and to set up Catholic schools without obtaining a licence from the Protestant bishop. These concessions were scorned by the Catholic Committee, long charged with the care of Catholic interests, and which had lately passed from the feeble leadership of Lord Kenmare to the more capable leadership of John Keogh.

The new French Republic had also become a menace to England , and English ministers dreaded having Ireland discontented. For these reasons the Catholic Relief Bill of became law. This gave Catholics the parliamentary and municipal franchise, enabled them to become jurors, magistrates, sheriffs, and officers in the army and navy.

They might carry arms under certain conditions, and they were admitted to the degrees of Trinity College, though not to its emoluments or higher honours. Two years later the advent of Lord Fitzwilliam as viceroy was regarded as the herald of complete religious equality.

But Pitt suddenly changed his mind, and, having resolved on a legislative union, it suited his purpose better to stop further concession. Then came the recall of Fitzwilliam, the rapid rise of the United Irish Society with revolutionary objects, the rebellion of , and the Union of From the Imperial Parliament the Catholics expected immediate emancipation, remembering the promises of British and Irish ministers , but Pitt shamefully broke his word, and emancipation was delayed till Nor would it have come even then but for the matchless leadership of O'Connell, and because the only alternative to concession was civil war.

The manner of concession was grudging. Catholics were admitted to Parliament, but the forty-shilling free-holders were disfranchised, Jesuits banished, other religious orders made incapable of receiving charitable bequests, bishops penalized for assuming ecclesiastical titles and priests for appearing outside their churches in their vestments.

Catholics were debarred from being either viceroy or lord chancellor of Ireland. The law regarding Jesuits has not been enforced, but the viceroy must still be a Protestant. Nor was it till the last half-century that a Catholic could be lord chancellor, Lord O'Hagan , who died in , being the first Catholic to fill that office since the Revolution of The second, in , repeated the terms of the establishment and prescribed the Oath of Supremacy.

In support of the Establishment, the draconian laws of Governor Dale in were directed mainly against the moral laxity of the colonists and were soon abrogated. When lawmaking passed to the Colonial Assembly the Establishment was maintained, but penalizing laws were still directed towards the moral uplift of the church. Intolerance of dissent was latent and implicit. Lord Baltimore, refusing as a Catholic to acknowledge the ecclesiastical supremacy of the king, in was denied temporary residence in the colony.

Following this incident a new Act of Uniformity passed the Assembly, fining absentees from service. Another, in , specifically disenfranchised Catholics and enforced the expulsion, within five days, of a priest coming to the colony.