next adjoining: on pain that for such not receiving he shall forfeit for the first year 201. for the second year 40l., and for every year after 60%. until he shall have received the sacrament, as aforesaid: And if after he shall have received the sacrament, he shall eftsoons at any time offend in not receiving the same by the space of one year, he shall for every such offence forfeit 60%. The one half of all which forfeitures shall be to the king, and the other half to him that will sue in any court of record at Westminster, or at the assizes, or general quarter sessions. § 3.

3. And by the 11 G. 2. c. 17. Every person being reputed owner or in possession or receipt of the rents and profits of any manors, messuages, or lands, or of any interest therein, who hav- [187] ing been, or reputed to be a papist, or educated in the popish religion, shall conform to and profess the protestant religion, and shall take the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration, and repeat and subscribe the declaration of the 30 C. 2. in the court of chancery, king's bench, or quarter sessions of the county where he shall reside (all which shall be recorded in one of his majesty's courts of record at Westminster or such quarter sessions as aforesaid); and every person being a protestant, claiming under such person so conforming, for his own benefit or for the benefit of any other protestant, and not for the benefit of any papist, - shall hold, possess, and enjoy all such manors, messuages, and lands discharged from all disabilities and incapacities incurred by such person so reputed owner, or in possession or receipt of the rents and profits as aforesaid, or by any other person by, from, or through whom the title to such manors, messuages or lands, or any interest therein shall be derived, for such estate or interest as he would have had if no such disability or incapacity had been incurred; unless the person entitled to take advantage of such disability, incapacity, or defect of title shall bona fide recover such manors, messuages, or lands, by judgment or decree in some action or suit to be commenced six calendar months before the making of such record, and to be prosecuted with due diligence. § 1.

But this shall not prejudice the right of any person entitled to take advantage of such disability or incapacity, who shall have, precedent to the making of such record, been in quiet possession any such manors, messuages, or lands, by the space of two calendar months. § 2.

of

And if any such person so conforming shall afterwards return to, or again profess the popish religion, he shall for ever afterwards be disabled and incapable of having any benefit of this act, and shall from thenceforth be liable to the same disabilities, incapacities, and forfeitures, as if he had not taken the said oaths, and subscribed the declaration. § 3.

Also, this shall not extend to prejudice the right of any person

entitled to any remainder or reversion in any such manors, messuages, or lands, in case he shall pursue his right by some action or suit to be commenced within twelve calendar months next after the precedent estate on which such remainder or reversion [188] depends and is expectant shall be determined, and shall prosecute such action or suit with due diligence. § 4.

[But by the 31 G. 3. c. 32. Papists who shall take the oaths and subscribe the declarations therein contained are not liable to be prosecuted for not resorting to some parish church, &c. or for being papists or reputed papists, § 4.; Nor shall they be summoned to subscribe the declaration against transubstantiation, § 18.; or to register their estates, § 21.; and they are in general relieved from those penalties which by the above mentioned statutes are remitted to those who shall conform.]

In the year 1714, the convocation drew up a form of receiving converts from popery: which is printed in Wilk. Canc. V. 4. p. 660.

XLV. Saving of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

It is generally provided by the several principal statutes above rehearsed, that nothing therein shall take away or abridge the authority or jurisdiction of ecclesiastical censures; but the archbishops, bishops, and other ecclesiastical judges may proceed as before the making thereof. [But the 31 G. 3. c. 32. § 3 & 4. limits equally (in the cases mentioned in that act) the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions.]

NOTE, By the 11 & 12. W. c. 4. further penalties were enacted against papists, which were as follows: (1) If any person shall apprehend any popish bishop, priest, or jesuit, and prosecute him, till he be convicted of saying mass, or exercising any other part of the office or function of a popish bishop or priest; he shall receive from the sheriff 100l. reward. (2) If any popish bishop, priest, or jesuit, shall say mass, or exercise any other part of the office or function of a popish bishop or priest (except in foreign ministers' houses); or if any papist, or person making profession of the popish religion, shall keep school, or take upon himself the education or government or boarding of youth; he shall be adjudged to perpetual imprisonment. (3) If any person educated in the popish religion, or professing the same, shall not within six months after he shall be 18 years of age, take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and subscribe the declaration of the 30 C. 2. in the chancery, king's bench, or quarter sessions; he shall (in respect of himself, but not of his heirs) be incapable to inherit or take any lands, by descent, devise, or limitation: [189] but the next of kin, being a protestant, shall have the same. (4) Every papist, or person making profession of the popish

religion, shall be disabled to purchase any lands, or profits out
of the same, in his own name, or in the name of any other to his
use, or in trust for him; but the same shall be void. (d)
But by the 18 G. 3. c. 60. all these clauses are repealed; provided
that nothing in the same act of 18 G. 3. shall extend to any
person but such who shall within six calendar months after pass-
ing of the act, or of accruing of his title, being of the age of 21
years, or being of unsound mind, or in prison, or beyond the
seas, then within six months after such disability removed, take
and subscribe an oath in the words following:

I A. B. do sincerely promise and swear, That I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to his majesty king George the third, and him will defend, to the utmost of my power, against all conspiracies and attempts whatever that shall be made against his person, crown, or dignity. And I will do my utmost endeavour to disclose and make known to his majesty, his heirs and successors, all treasons and traitorous conspiracies which may be formed against him or them. And I do faithfully promise to maintain, support, and defend, to the utmost of my power, the succession of the crown in his majesty's family against any person or persons whatsoever; hereby utterly renouncing and abjuring any obedience or allegiance unto the person taking upon himself the stile and title of Prince of Wales, in the life-time of his father, and who, since his death, is said to have assumed the stile and title of king of Great Britain, by the name of Charles the third, and to any other person claiming or pretending a right to the crown of these realms. And I do swear, that I do reject and detest, as an unchristian and impious position, That it is lawful to murder or destroy any person or persons whatsoever, for or under pretence of their being hereticks; and also that unchristian and impious principle, That no faith is to be kept with hereticks. I further declare, that it is no article of my faith, and that I do renounce, reject, and abjure the opinion, That princes excommu- [190] nicated by the pope and council, or by any authority of the see of Rome, or by any authority whatsoever, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or any person whatsoever. And I do declare, that I do not believe that the pope of Rome, or any other foreign prince, prelate, state, or potentate, hath, or ought to have, any temporal or civil jurisdiction, power, superiority, or pre-eminence, directly or indirectly within this realm. And I do solemnly, in the presence of

(d) Upon the statutes against papists before they were mitigated by the 18 G. 3. Lord Mansfield observes, that they were thought, when they passed, necessary to the safety of the state. On no other ground can they be defended. The political object the legislature had in view was to take from the Roman catholics that weight and influence which is naturally connected with landed property, beyond what personal estate can give. Foone v. Blount, Cowp. 466. Trin. 16 G.3.

God, profess, testify, and declare, That I do make this declaration, and every part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of the words of this oath; without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatever, and without any dispensation already granted by the pope, or any authority of the see of Rome, or any person whatever ; and without thinking that I am or can be acquitted before God or man, or absolved of this declaration, or any part thereof, although the pope or any other persons or authority whatsoever shall dispense with or annul the same, or declare that it was null or void.

Which oath shall be competent to the courts at Westminster or any general or quarter sessions to administer; Of which a register shall be kept in like manner as for the oaths required from persons qualifying for offices. And provided also, that nothing herein shall extend to any popish bishop, priest, jesuit, or schoolmaster, who shall not have taken and subscribed the above oath, before he shall have been apprehended, or any prosecution commenced against him.

[This oath is nearly similar in terms to that required by the 31 G. 3. c. 32. (See Daths, 20. B.) But the privileges conceded to Roman catholicks by the latter statutes are more extensive. (2)]

XLVI. Summary of the 31 G. 3. c. 32.

This act enables persons who profess the Roman catholic religion, personally to appear in any of his majesty's courts of chancery, king's bench, common pleas, or exchequer at Westminster, or in any court of general quarter sessions, of and for the county, city, or place where such person shall reside, and there in open court between the hours of nine in the morning and two in the afternoon, to take, make, and subscribe at full length, [or with his mark, the name being written by the officer if he cannot write,] the oath and declaration therein contained, (for which see Daths, 20. B.) a certificate of which, upon payment of 2s. shall be delivered by the proper officer of the court, which [191] shall be sufficient evidence of such persons having taken and subscribed such declaration and oath, unless the same shall be falsified. Lists of the persons who shall have taken the oaths are to be transmitted to the clerk of the privy counsel annually. § 2.

The 1 Eliz. c. 1 g 2. 23 Eliz. c. 1. 27 Eliz. c. 2. 29 Eliz. c. 6. 35 Eliz. c. 2. 2 (vulgo 1.) Ja. c. 4. 3 J. c. 4. 3 Ja. c. 5. 7 Ja. c. 6. 3 Car. 1 c. 2. 25 Car. 1. c. 2. 1 W. & M. st. 1. c. 8. 1 G. 1. st. 2.

(2) And now by 43 G. 3. c. 30. The declaration and oath expressed in 31 G. 3. c. 32. § 1. shall as to all who have taken, declared, and subscribed, or hereafter shall make, take, and subscribe the same in the manner there mentioned, give the same benefits and advantages, and operate to the same intents as by the 18 G. 3. c. 60. is enacted of the oath thereby subscribed.

c. 13. requiring persons to resort to their parish church or chapel, or some usual place where the common prayer is used, and inflicting penalties upon papists, priests, and those who shall hear or say mass, or shall refuse to take the oath of supremacy, or subscribe the declaration against transubstantiation, are repealed as to persons who shall take and subscribe the said oath and declaration. § 3, 4. & 18. Also the 1 W. & M. st. 1. c. 9. for removing papists from the cities of London and Westminster: the 30 Car. 2. stat. 2. c. 1. inflicting penalties on peers who shall come into the king's presence, not having taken the oath and made the declaration before required: the 1 G. 1. st. 2. c. 55. and 3 G. 1. c. 18. requiring papists to register their names and lands, deeds and wills; and the 7 & 8 W. 3. c. 24. and 1 G. 1. st. 2. c. 13. relative to practitioners in law. § 19, 20, 21, 22.- for all which see the respective heads of this title. But no assembly for religious worship is allowed under this act, until the place of meeting shall be certified to the justices and recorded at the general or quarter sessions of the peace for the county, city, or place in which such meeting shall be held, nor is any person to perform any ecclesiastical function therein, until his name and description be also recorded at the sessions by the clerk of the peace, and no such place of assembly is to be locked during the meeting. § 5 & 6.

A penalty of 201. is inflicted on those who shall maliciously disturb assemblies of religious worship permitted by this act, or misuse any priest or minister therein; but the benefit of the act is not to extend to any Roman Catholic ecclesiastic who shall officiate in any place with a steeple and bell, or at any funeral in any church or church-yard, or who shall exercise any of the rites or ceremonies of his religion, or wear the habits of his order, save within a place of religious worship permitted by this act, or in a private house where not more than five persons are assembled besides those of the household, or who shall not previously to his officiating have taken the oath appointed by the act. § 10. ministers of any Roman catholic congregation who shall take the aforesaid oath are exempted from serving on juries, or being chosen to parochial or ward office; other Roman catholics are to execute such offices by deputy. § 7 & 8.

But [192]

The act does not exempt Roman catholics from paying tithes, nor does it repeal any part of the 26 G. 3. c. 33. commonly called the marriage act, nor does it excuse persons from attending divine service on Sunday, except they come to some place of worship permitted by this act or the act of toleration. § 9. 11, 12. Roman catholic schools are permitted under certain restrictions, for which see Schools, 3. and this title XXVII.

This act does not extend to Scotland; but by the 33 G. 3. c. 44. Roman catholics of that part of Great Britain who shall