Sacramental Test Act 1828
Encyclopedia
The Sacramental Test Act 1828 (9 Geo. IV, c. 17) was an Act
passed by the British Parliament
.
laid down that all mayors and officials in municipal corporations had to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion in accordance with the rites of the Church of England
. They also had to take the oath of allegiance, the oath of supremacy and non-resistance and declare that the Solemn League and Covenant
to be false. The Test Act 1673 made all holders of civil and military offices and places of trust under the Crown to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy and receive the Anglican sacrament. However in practice the full force of the law was not exacted against Protestant Dissenters
: an annual Indemnity Act was frequently passed that ensured that Dissenters were allowed to hold public office.
On 17 February 1827 the Prime Minister
Lord Liverpool
suffered a stroke. George Canning
succeeded him in April. The formation of Canning's ministry revolved around Catholic emancipation, with the anti-Catholics Lord Eldon
, the Duke of Wellington
, Sir Robert Peel
, Lord Bathurst
and Lord Westmoreland
refusing the serve. Canning persuaded the Whigs Henry Brougham and George Tierney
into forming a coalition on the condition that the Whig ministers did not attempt to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts or promote parliamentary reform. (Canning himself would not support Repeal until Catholic emancipation had been achieved.) Brougham wrote to Thomas Creevey
on 21 April on the reason for joining Canning: "My principle is – anything to lock the door for ever on Eldon and Co." On 7 June Lord John Russell
withdrew his motion for Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts but pledged to introduce it again in the next session of Parliament. On 8 August Canning died and the coalition fell apart, with the Duke of Wellington forming a ministry.
The declaration was approved in the committee stage and was sent up to the House of Lords, after passing the House of Commons by 237 to 193. In March 1828 Peel met the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishops of London, Durham, Chester and Llandaff in which he got them to make sure the Bill passed the Lords. No Bishop opposed the Bill. Russell wrote on 31 March: "Peel is a very pretty hand at hauling down his colours. It is a really gratifying thing to force the enemy to give up his first line, that none but churchmen are worthy to serve the state, and I trust we shall soon make him give up the second, that none but Protestants are". Lord Eldon wrote to his daughter in April:
Lord Holland
wrote to Henry Fox
on 10 April:
The supporters of the Test and Corporation Acts moved wrecking amendment
s to modify the Bill but were defeated by large majorities. The Bishop of Llandaff however managed to get included in the declaration of the words "upon the true faith of a Christian" in the face of Lord Holland's opposition. Lord Eldon unsuccessfully moved to include the words "I am a Protestant" into the declaration. A religious test thus remained on the statute book until repealed in 1866. The Bill received its third reading on 2 May and on 9 May received the Royal Assent
.
throughout the remainder of that year and on into the next". Immediately after the Act passed Parliament Sir Francis Burdett in the Commons and Lord Lansdowne in the Lords raised the issue of Catholic emancipation. The Catholic Relief Act 1829
repealed the Test Act 1678 which required all MPs to take the oath of abjuration, declare against transubstantiation and against the invocation of the Virgin Mary and the sacrifice of the mass.
The "upon the true faith of a Christian" phrase in the new oath maintained a hurdle for Jewish candidates for political office, delaying emancipation of the Jews in England
until 1858. Atheists remained barred until 1886.
Act of Parliament
An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...
passed by the British Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
.
Background
The Corporation Act 1661Corporation Act 1661
The Corporation Act of 1661 is an Act of the Parliament of England . It belongs to the general category of test acts, designed for the express purpose of restricting public offices in England to members of the Church of England....
laid down that all mayors and officials in municipal corporations had to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion in accordance with the rites of the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
. They also had to take the oath of allegiance, the oath of supremacy and non-resistance and declare that the Solemn League and Covenant
Solemn League and Covenant
The Solemn League and Covenant was an agreement between the Scottish Covenanters and the leaders of the English Parliamentarians. It was agreed to in 1643, during the First English Civil War....
to be false. The Test Act 1673 made all holders of civil and military offices and places of trust under the Crown to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy and receive the Anglican sacrament. However in practice the full force of the law was not exacted against Protestant Dissenters
English Dissenters
English Dissenters were Christians who separated from the Church of England in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.They originally agitated for a wide reaching Protestant Reformation of the Established Church, and triumphed briefly under Oliver Cromwell....
: an annual Indemnity Act was frequently passed that ensured that Dissenters were allowed to hold public office.
On 17 February 1827 the Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
Lord Liverpool
Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool
Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool KG PC was a British politician and the longest-serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since the Union with Ireland in 1801. He was 42 years old when he became premier in 1812 which made him younger than all of his successors to date...
suffered a stroke. George Canning
George Canning
George Canning PC, FRS was a British statesman and politician who served as Foreign Secretary and briefly Prime Minister.-Early life: 1770–1793:...
succeeded him in April. The formation of Canning's ministry revolved around Catholic emancipation, with the anti-Catholics Lord Eldon
John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon
John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon PC KC FRS FSA was a British barrister and politician. He served as Lord Chancellor of Great Britain between 1801 and 1806 and again between 1807 and 1827.- Background and education :...
, the Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
, Sir Robert Peel
Robert Peel
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet was a British Conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 December 1834 to 8 April 1835, and again from 30 August 1841 to 29 June 1846...
, Lord Bathurst
Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl Bathurst
Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl Bathurst KG PC was a British politician.-Background and education:Lord Bathurst was the elder son of Henry Bathurst, 2nd Earl Bathurst, by his wife Tryphena, daughter of Thomas Scawen...
and Lord Westmoreland
John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland
John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland KG, PC , styled Lord Burghersh between 1771 and 1774, was a British Tory politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, who served in most of the cabinets of the period, primarily as Lord Privy Seal.-Background:Westmorland was the son of John Fane, 9th...
refusing the serve. Canning persuaded the Whigs Henry Brougham and George Tierney
George Tierney
George Tierney PC was an English Whig politician.-Background and education:Born in Gibraltar, Tierney was the son of Thomas Tierney, a wealthy Irish merchant of London, who was living in Gibraltar as prize agent. He was sent to Eton and Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he took the degree of Law in 1784...
into forming a coalition on the condition that the Whig ministers did not attempt to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts or promote parliamentary reform. (Canning himself would not support Repeal until Catholic emancipation had been achieved.) Brougham wrote to Thomas Creevey
Thomas Creevey
Thomas Creevey was an English politician, son of William Creevey, a Liverpool merchant, and was born in that city....
on 21 April on the reason for joining Canning: "My principle is – anything to lock the door for ever on Eldon and Co." On 7 June Lord John Russell
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, KG, GCMG, PC , known as Lord John Russell before 1861, was an English Whig and Liberal politician who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century....
withdrew his motion for Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts but pledged to introduce it again in the next session of Parliament. On 8 August Canning died and the coalition fell apart, with the Duke of Wellington forming a ministry.
Passage
On 26 February 1828 Russell introduced the Sacramental Test Bill, which would Repeal the Test and Corporation Acts. Russell argued that religious liberty was a more effective safeguard for the Church of England than exclusion and that the Bill would stop the reprehensible practice of the most sacred rite of Christianity being used for a purely secular end. Peel supported the Bill on the government's behalf on the condition that the following declaration would be included:I, A. B., do solemnly declare that I will never exercise any power, authority, or influence, which I may possess by virtue of the office of — to injure or weaken the Protestant Church as it is by law established within this realm, or to disturb it in the possession of any rights or privileges to which it is by law entitled.
The declaration was approved in the committee stage and was sent up to the House of Lords, after passing the House of Commons by 237 to 193. In March 1828 Peel met the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishops of London, Durham, Chester and Llandaff in which he got them to make sure the Bill passed the Lords. No Bishop opposed the Bill. Russell wrote on 31 March: "Peel is a very pretty hand at hauling down his colours. It is a really gratifying thing to force the enemy to give up his first line, that none but churchmen are worthy to serve the state, and I trust we shall soon make him give up the second, that none but Protestants are". Lord Eldon wrote to his daughter in April:
...the administration have – to their shame, be it said – got the Archbishops and most of the Bishops to support this revolutionary Bill. I voted as long ago as in the years, I think, 1787, 1789, and 1790, against a similar measure; Lord North and Pitt opposing it as destructive of the Church Establishment – Dr Priestley, a Dissenting minister, then asserting, that he had laid a train of gunpowder under the Church, which would blow it up; and Dr Price, another Dissenting minister, blessing God that he could depart in peace, as the revolution in France would lead here to the destruction of all union between Church and State. The young men and lads in the House of Commons are too young to remember these things. From 1790 to 1827, many and various have been the attempts to relieve the Catholics, but through those thirty-seven years nobody has thought, and evinced that thought, of proposing such a Bill as this in Parliament, as necessary, or fit, as between the Church and the Dissenters. Canning, last year, positively declared that he would oppose it altogether.
Lord Holland
Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland
Henry Richard Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland PC was an English politician and a major figure in Whig politics in the early 19th century...
wrote to Henry Fox
Henry Fox, 4th Baron Holland
Henry Edward Fox, 4th Baron Holland, of Holland, 4th Baron Holland, of Foxley, MP was briefly a British Whig politician and later an ambassador....
on 10 April:
It is the greatest victory over the principle of persecution & exclusion yet obtained. Practically there have been greater such as the Toleration Act in W 3d's time & the Catholick bill of 1792. Practically too the Catholick Emancipation when it comes will be a far more important measure, more immediate & more extensive in its effects – but in principle this is the greatest of them all as it explodes the real Tory doctrine that Church & State are indivisible.
The supporters of the Test and Corporation Acts moved wrecking amendment
Wrecking amendment
In legislative debate, a wrecking amendment is an amendment made by a legislator who disagrees with the principles of a bill and who seeks to make it useless rather than directly opposing the bill by simply voting...
s to modify the Bill but were defeated by large majorities. The Bishop of Llandaff however managed to get included in the declaration of the words "upon the true faith of a Christian" in the face of Lord Holland's opposition. Lord Eldon unsuccessfully moved to include the words "I am a Protestant" into the declaration. A religious test thus remained on the statute book until repealed in 1866. The Bill received its third reading on 2 May and on 9 May received the Royal Assent
Royal Assent
The granting of royal assent refers to the method by which any constitutional monarch formally approves and promulgates an act of his or her nation's parliament, thus making it a law...
.
Effects
The Act led to "an explosion of pamphlets on the question of Catholic emancipationCatholic Emancipation
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws...
throughout the remainder of that year and on into the next". Immediately after the Act passed Parliament Sir Francis Burdett in the Commons and Lord Lansdowne in the Lords raised the issue of Catholic emancipation. The Catholic Relief Act 1829
Catholic Relief Act 1829
The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 was passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 24 March 1829, and received Royal Assent on 13 April. It was the culmination of the process of Catholic Emancipation throughout the nation...
repealed the Test Act 1678 which required all MPs to take the oath of abjuration, declare against transubstantiation and against the invocation of the Virgin Mary and the sacrifice of the mass.
The "upon the true faith of a Christian" phrase in the new oath maintained a hurdle for Jewish candidates for political office, delaying emancipation of the Jews in England
Emancipation of the Jews in England
The Emancipation of the Jews in England was the culmination of efforts in the 19th century over several hundred years to loosen the legal restrictions set in place on England's Jewish population...
until 1858. Atheists remained barred until 1886.
Further reading
- R. W. Davis, 'The Strategy of Dissent in the Repeal Campaign, 1820-28', Journal of Modern History, 38 (1966), pp. 374–93.
- G. I. T. Machin, 'Resistance to repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, 1828', Historical Journal 22(1) 1979, pp. 115–139.