Catholic Emancipation. After the Reformation, both in England and in Scotland, Roman Catholics were subjected to many penal regulations and restrictions. As late as 1780 the law of England—which was actually enforced in 1764–65—made it felony in a foreign Catholic priest, and high treason in one who was a native of the kingdom, to teach the doctrines or perform divine service according to the rites of his church. Catholics were debarred from acquiring land by purchase. Persons educated abroad in the Catholic faith were declared incapable of succeeding to real property, and their estates were forfeited to the next Protestant heir. A son or other nearest relation being a Protestant, was empowered to take possession of the estate of his Catholic father or other kinsman during his life. A Catholic was disqualified from undertaking the guardianship even of Catholic children. Catholics were excluded from the legal profession, and it was presumed that a Protestant lawyer who married a Catholic had adopted the faith of his wife. It was a capital offence for a Catholic priest to celebrate a marriage between a Protestant and Catholic. Such was the state of the law, not only in England but in Ireland, where the large majority of the population adhered to the old faith. In Scotland, also, Catholics were prohibited from purchasing or taking by succession landed property. The inexpediency and irrationality of imposing fetters of this description on persons not suspected of disloyalty, and from whom danger was no longer apprehended, began about 1778 to occupy the attention of liberal-minded statesmen; and in 1780 Sir George Savile introduced a bill for the repeal of some of the most severe disqualifications in the case of such Catholics as would submit to a proposed test. This test included an oath of allegiance to the sovereign, and abjuration of the Pretender, a declaration of disbelief in the several doctrines, that it is lawful to put individuals to death on pretence of their being heretics; that no faith is to be kept with heretics; that princes excommunicated may be deposed or put to death; and that the pope is entitled to any temporal jurisdiction within the realm. The bill, from the operation of which Scotland was exempted, eventually passed into law. An attempt which had been made at the same time to obtain a like measure of relief for the Catholics of Scotland, was defeated by an outburst of religious fanaticism. The populace of Edinburgh, stirred up by a body called 'The Committee for the Protestant Interest,' attacked and set fire to the Catholic chapel and the houses of the clergy and of such persons as were suspected to be favourable to Catholic relief. The frenzy spread to England, where a 'Protestant Association' had been formed to oppose the resolutions of the legislature (see GORDON, LORD GEORGE). In 1791 a bill was passed affording further relief to such Catholics as would sign a protest against the temporal power of the pope, and his authority to release from civil obligations; and in the following year, by the statute 33 Geo. III. chap. 44, the most highly penal of the restrictions bearing on the Scottish Catholics were removed without opposition, a form of oath and declaration being prescribed, on taking which they could freely purchase or inherit landed property.
Endeavours were made at the same time by the Irish parliament to get rid of the more important disqualifications, and place Ireland on an equality in point of religious freedom with England. In 1780 Grattan carried his resolution that the king and parliament of Ireland could alone make laws that would bind the Irish, and separation from England was urged as the alternative with repeal of the disqualifying statutes. The agitation culminated in the Irish rebellion of 1798; the union of 1800 followed, which was partly carried by means of virtual pledges given by Pitt—pledges which Pitt was unable to redeem owing to the king's scruples about his coronation oath, and Pitt resigned. Meantime, in England, Catholics continued subject to many minor disabilities which the above-mentioned acts failed to remove. They were excluded from sitting in parliament, and from enjoying numerous offices, franchises, and civil rights, by the requirement of signing the declaration against transubstantiation, the invoca- tion of saints, and the sacrifice of the mass. In the early part of this century many measures were proposed for the removal of these disqualifications, and in 1813 and succeeding years one bill after another for this end was thrown out. Fox, Grenville, Canning, Castlereagh, and Burdett were among those who made efforts in the direction of emancipation. Meanwhile, the agitation on the subject among the Catholics themselves greatly increased, and in 1824 it assumed an organised shape by the formation of the 'Roman Catholic Association' in Ireland, with its systematic collections for the 'Catholic rent.' The Duke of Wellington, who for a long time felt great repugnance to admit the Catholic claims, was at last brought to the conviction that the security of the empire would be imperilled by further resisting them, and in 1829 a measure was introduced by the duke's ministry for Catholic emancipation. An act having been first passed for the suppression of the Roman Catholic Association—which had already voted its own dissolution—the celebrated Roman Catholic Relief Bill was introduced by Peel in the House of Commons on the 5th of March, and after passing both Houses, received the royal assent on the 13th April. By this act (10 Geo. IV. chap. 7) an oath is substituted for the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration, on taking which Catholics may sit and vote in either House of Parliament, and be admitted to most other offices from which they were before excluded. They, however, continue to be excluded from the offices of Guardian and Justice or Regent of the United Kingdom, Lord Chancellor, Lord Keeper, or Lord Commissioner of the Great Seal of Great Britain or Ireland, and Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. As members of corporations they could not vote in the disposal of church property or patronage. But the public use of their insignia of office, and of episcopal titles and names, was denied them; the extension of monachism was prohibited; and it was enacted that the number of Jesuits should not be increased, and that they should henceforth be subject to registration. By the Acts 7 and 8, and 9 and 10 Vict., most of the acts still in force against Catholics were removed; 30 and 31 Vict. removed a still remaining disability, the office of Chancellor of Ireland being thrown open; though a Catholic priest may not sit in the House of Commons. For the prohibition (ultimately repealed) against the assumption of ecclesiastical titles in respect of places in the United Kingdom, see ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES ASSUMPTION ACT. See also O'CONNELL, ABJURATION, ALLEGIANCE; and the History of Catholic Emancipation, by W. J. Amherst, S.J. (2 vols. 1886).