User:Stephen2nd/Royal succession sandbox

The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church. Caused by factors such as the decline of feudalism and the rise of nationalism, these events were also part of the European Protestant Reformation, a religious and political movement which affected the practice of Christianity across the whole of Europe.

The English Protestant Reformation was exacted by the State with English post-Reformation oaths. The oaths of royal supremacy in 1534 and 1589, involved Acts of Supremacy, Oath of Supremacy and the Submission of the Clergy. Similar oaths included an Oath of Abjuration under the Commonwealth in 1643 and Test Oath of 1672 and 1678. The 1774 Irish Oath Act and 1829 Catholic Emancipation Act eventually led to the repeal of all Statutory Oaths against Catholicism.

Roman Catholic Relief Bills were attempted steps of legislation in the UK towards Catholic Emancipation. They sought to remove the legal tests and impositions against British and Irish Catholics, brought about by Henry VIII's state Protestant Reformation, and numerous subsequent laws. Such Bills were brought forward from the end of the 18th century onwards, but encountered political opposition, especially during the Napoleonic Wars. Failing as legislation, they did not become Acts of Parliament, with the exception of the 1778 Act and the Catholic Relief Act 1791. In the end the legal position of Catholics was transformed by the Catholic Relief Act 1829. In 1867, during the reign of Victoria, these were repealed. In 1871 the Promissory Oaths Bill removed all the old Oaths of Allegiance. In 1901 strong resolutions were passed against its retention by the Canadian House of Commons, emphasized by similar petitions from the hierarchies of Australia. After the death of Edward VII, a repealing act was brought in during the reign of George V. This Bill was carried through both Houses by large majorities, and received Royal Assent on 3 August 1910, thus removing the last anti-Catholic oath or declaration from the English Constitution.

The Bill of Rights 1688 and the Coronation Oath Act 1688, the Act of Settlement 1700, the Union with Scotland Act 1706, the Sophia Naturalization Act 1705 and Princess Sophia's Precedence Act 1711, the Royal Marriages Act 1772, the Union with Ireland Act 1800, the Accession Declaration Act 1910 and the Regency Act 1937.

Roman Catholic relief bills and Catholic Emancipation

 * Gunpowder Plot 1605–1606 James I
 * Popish Recusants Act 1605 James I
 * Test Act 1673 1678 Charles II (Clarendon Code)
 * Declaration of Indulgence 1687 James II
 * Bill of Rights 1689 W & M
 * Act of Toleration 1689 W & M
 * Coronation Oath Act 1689 W & M
 * Penal law [PL]
 * [PL]:Education Act 1695 W III
 * [PL]: Disarming Act 1695 W III
 * [PL]: Marriage Act 1697 W III
 * [PL]: Banishment Act 1697 W III
 * Act of Settlement 1700 W III
 * [PL]: Registration Act 1704 Anne
 * [PL]: Popery Act 1704 and 1709 Anne
 * [PL]: Occasional Conformity Act 1711 Anne
 * Disarming Act 1716 George I
 * [PL]: Disenfranchising Act 1728 George II
 * Catholic Relief Act 1778 and 1793 George III
 * Gordon Riots 1780 George III
 * Act of Union 1800 George III
 * Test Acts Repealed 1828 George IV
 * Catholic Relief Act 1829 George IV

Clarendon Code
The four drastic penal laws collectively known as Clarendon Code are named after Charles II's chief minister Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon. These included:


 * Corporation Act (1661): All municipal officials to take Anglican communion, and formally reject the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643. (to exclude nonconformists from civil, military or public office, and prevented them from being awarded degrees by Cambridge and Oxford universities.Rescinded 1828.)
 * Act of Uniformity (1662): Book of Common Prayer compulsory in religious service. Over two thousand clergy refused to comply and so were forced to resign their livings (the Great Ejection). (Modified by the Act of Uniformity Amendment Act, of 1872.)
 * Conventicle Act (1664): Forbade conventicles (meetings for unauthorized worship) of more than five people not members of same household. (To prevent dissenting religious groups from meeting.)
 * Five Mile Act (1665): Forbade nonconformist ministers from coming within five miles of incorporated towns or place of their former livings. Forbidden to teach in schools. (Mostly repealed by 1689, but not formally abolished until 1812.)

Parliamentary Archives HL/PO/PU/1/1688/1W

Under Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s, England was governed for the first time under a formal Constitution, the Instrument of Government. When he died in 1658 his son Richard faced a demanded recall of original Members of Parliament, dismissed in 1653. This re-established a Royalist majority. Following elections, the government accepted the terms of Charles II and the monarchy was restored in May 1660. The Scots had already crowned Charles as their King in 1650. Charles II was treated as having succeeded upon his father's death so that all Acts passed since 1649 were null and void.

Although Charles II was Anglican, he married a Catholic. His brother, the future James II, was openly Catholic. Parliament tried to pass an Exclusion Bill to stop Catholics inheriting the throne, but Charles II barred it. James II used his prerogative to issue a Declaration of Indulgence, restoring all rights to Catholics. With the birth of a Catholic heir in June 1688, (the 'Immortal Seven') sent a secret invitation offering the throne to William of Orange in the Netherlands, who had married James's daughter Mary. When William landed in England, James fled to France and then Ireland, where he remained King until defeated at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690.

In England, a provisional Parliament issued a Declaration of Rights in 1689 condemning the actions of James II as "contrary to the known laws and statutes and freedom of this realm." The Declaration was accepted by William and Mary, and ratified by a formal Parliament in 1689 as a Bill of Rights. Scottish Parliament approved it as Claim of Right.

James II's flight in 1688 had given Parliament the opportunity to alter the succession to the English throne and to elect a King. Having used this power with William and Mary, Parliament was not hesitant in exercising its influence over the succession again.

The 1689 Bill of Rights legislated that succession would pass first to any children of James II's two daughters Mary and Anne, before going to any children born to William by a second marriage. It also stated Catholics, or those married to Catholics, could not succeed to the throne.

There was little concern in 1689, until Queen Mary died in 1694 without any children. This turned to great concern when the Duke of Gloucester, the only surviving child of Princess Anne, died aged 11 in 1700. This left Anne's half-brother James, the infant whose birth in June 1688 had spurred William of Orange to invade, Anne's successor. In June 1701 Parliament passed the Act of Settlement. It confirmed the provision of the Bill of Rights that no Catholic or person with a Catholic spouse could sit on the throne.

The Act also legislated that, to preserve the Protestant Succession in case neither Anne nor William had any more children, the Crown would pass at Anne's death to a Protestant relation. This was Sophia, the Electress of Hanover in Germany, the granddaughter of James I by his daughter Elizabeth, and first cousin to Charles II and James II. Sophia's son George I succeeded to the throne upon Anne's death in 1714, and his descendants, including the current Queen, have ruled Britain ever since - all because of a decision of Parliament in 1701 to alter the succession and to choose its own monarch.