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In England, Protestant (Calvinistic) Dissenters had been granted
liberty of worship in 1689 (Toleration Act) but still they might not
hold civil, military, or political office without the special
dispensation of Parliament. Baptism, registration of births and deaths,
and marriage could be performed legally only by Anglican clergymen.
Non-Anglicans were barred from Oxford and could take no degree at
Cambridge University.
Worst of all was the lot of the Roman Catholics. In England they had
practically no civil, political, or religious rights. By a law of 1700
[Footnote: Repealed in 1778, but on condition that Roman Catholics
should deny the temporal power of the pope and his right to depose
kings.] the Roman Catholic must abjure the Mass or lose his property,
and priests celebrating Mass were liable to life imprisonment. In
Ireland the communicants of the "Church of Ireland" (Anglican)
constituted a very small minority, [Footnote: Even in the nineteenth
century, there were only about 500,000 Anglicans out of a population of
somewhat less than 6,000,000.


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