PENAL
612
PENAL
George III, sought to prevent tlie praetioe of the
Cathohc Faith in Knghmd. To the sanguinary laws
passed by lOlizabetli further measures, sometimes
inflicting new disqvialifications and penalties, some-
times reiterating iirevious enactments, were added,
until this persecuting legislation made its effects
felt in every department of human life. Catholics
lost not only freedom of worship, but civil rights
as well; their estates, property, and sometimes even
lives were at the mercy of any informer. The fact
that these laws were passed as political occasion de-
manded deprived them of any coherence or consist-
ency; nor was any codification ever attempted, so that
the ta.sk of summing up this long and complicated
course of legislation is a difficult one. In his historical
account of the penal laws, published at the time when
partial relief had only just been granted (see bibliog-
raphy at end of this section), the eminent lawyer,
Charles Butler, the first Catholic to be called to the
Bar after the Catholic Relief Act of 1791, and the
first to be appointed King's Counsel after the Cath-
olic Emancipation Act, thought it best to group these
laws under five heads: (1) Those which subjected
Catholics to penalties and punishments for practising
their religious worship; (2) those which punished them
for not conforming to the Established Church (Stat-
utes of Recusancy); (3) those regulating the penalties
or disabilities attending the refusal to take the Oath
of Supremacy (1559; 1605; 1689), the declarations
against Transubstantiation (Test Act, 1673) and
against Popery (1678); (4) the act passed with respect
to receiving the sacrament of the Lord's Supper; (5)
statutes affecting landed property. For the present
purpose, however, it seems preferable to adopt a
chronological arrangement, which more clearly ex-
hibits the historical development of the code and the
state of the law at any particular period.
The Penal Laws began with the two Statutes of Supremacy and Uniformity by which Queen Elizabeth, in 1.559, initiated her religious settlement; and her legislation falls into three divisions corresponding to three definitely marked periods: (1) 15.58-70, when the Government trusted to the policy of enforcing con- formity by fines and deprivations; (2) 1570-80, from the date of the queen's excommunication to the time when the Government recognized the Catholic re- action due to the seminary priests and Jesuits; (3) from 1580 to the end of the reign. To the first period belong the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity (I Eliz. 1 and 2) and the amending statute (5 Eliz. c. 1). By the Act of Supremacy all who maintained the spiritual or ecclesiastical authority of any foreign prel- ate were to forfeit all goods and chattels, both real and personal, and all benefices for the first offence, or in case the value of these was below £20, to be im- prisoned for one year; they were liable to the for- feitures of Pra;munire for the second offence, and to the penalties of high treason for the third offence. These penalties of Prajmunire were: exclusion from the sovereign's protection, forfeiture of all lands and goods, arrest to answer to the sovereign and Council. The penalties assigned for high treason were draw- ing, hanging, and quartering; corruption of blood, by which heirs became incajjable of inheriting honours and offices, and, lastly, forfeiture of all property. These first statutes were made stricter by the amend- ing act (5 Eliz. c. 1), which declared that to main- tain the authority of the pope in any way was punish- able by penalties of Pra>munire for the first offence and of high treason, though without corruption of blood, for the second. All who refused the Oath of Suprem- acy were subjected to the like penalties. The Act of Uniformity, primarily designed to secure outward con- formity in the use of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, waa in effect a penal statute, as it punished all clerics who used any other service by deprivation and imprisonment, and everyone who refused to attend
the Anglican service by a fine of twelve pence for each
omission. It should be remembered that the amount
of these fines must be multiplied by ten or more to
give their modern equivalent.
Coming to the legislation of the second period, there are two acts directed against the Bull of Exconnnimi- cation: 13 Eliz. c. 1, which, among other enactments, made it high treason to affirm that the queen ought not to enjoy the Crown, or to declare her to be a here- tic or schismatic, and 13 EUz. c. 2, which made it high treason to put into effect any papal Bull of absolution, to absolve or reconcile any person to the Catholic Church, or to be so absolved or reconciled, or to pro- cure or publish any papal Bull or writing whatsoever. The penalties of Pra-munire were enacted against all who brought into England or who gave to others Agnus Dei or articles blessed by the pope or by any- one through faculties from him. A third act, 13 Eliz. c. 3, which was designed to stop Catholics from taking refuge abroad, declared that any subject departing the realm without the queen's licence, and not returning within six months, should forfeit the profits of his lands during life and all his goods and chattels. The third and most severe group of statutes begins with the "Act to retain the Queen's Majesty's subjects in their obedience" (23 Eliz. c. 1), passed in 1581. This made it high treason to reconcile anyone or to be re- conciled to "the Romish reUgion", prohibited Mass under penalty of a fine of two himdred marks and im- prisonment for one year for the celebrant, and a fine of one hundred marks and the same imprisonment for those who heard the Mass. This act also increased the penalty for not attending the Anglican service to tlie sum of twenty pounds a month, or imprisonment till the fine be paid, or till the offender went to the Protestant Church. A further penalty of ten pounds a month was inflicted on anyone keeping a schoolmaster who did not attend the Protestant service. The schoolmaster himself was to be imprisoned for one year.
The climax of EUzabeth's persecution was reached in 1585 by the "Act against Jesuits, Seminary priests and other such like disobedient persons" (27 EHz. c. 2). This statute, under which most of the English martyrs suffered, made it high treason for any Jesuit or any seminary priest to be in England at all, and felony for any one to harbour or relieve them. The penalties of Pra-munire were imposed on all who sent assistance to the seminaries abroad, andafineof £100 for each offence on those who sent their children over- seas without the royal licence.
So far as priests were concerned, the effect of all this legislation may be summed up as follows: For any priest ordained before the accession of Elizabeth it was high treason after 1563 to maintain the authority of the pope for the second time, or to refuse the oath of supremacy for the second time; after 1571, to receive or u.se any Bull or form of reconciliation; after 1.581, to absolve or reconcile anyone to the Church or to be ab- solved or reconciled. For seminary priests it w-as high treason to be in England at all after 1585. Under this statute, over 150 Cathofics died on the scaffold be- tween 1581 and 1603, exclusive of Elizabeth's earlier victims.
The last of Elizabeth's laws was the "Act for the better discovery of wicked and seditious persons term- ing themselves Catholics, but being rebellious and traitorous subjects" (35 EHz. c. 2). Its effect was to prohibit all recusants from removing more than five miles from their place of abode, and to order all per- sons suspected of being Jesuits or seminary priests, and not answering satisfactorily, to be imprisoned till they did so.
The hopes of the Catholics on the accession of James I were soon dispelled, and during his reign (1603-25) five very oppressive measures were added to the statute-book. In the first year of his reign there was
