Test Act

The Test Acts were English laws requiring public officeholders to receive Anglican communion and reject Catholic doctrines, excluding Catholics and Protestant dissenters from office.

Corporation Act 1661: An English statute requiring municipal officeholders to take Anglican communion and swear oaths against resistance to the Crown. It applied the conformity test to local government before Parliament extended it to national office.
English Restoration: The return of the Stuart monarchy in 1660 after the English Commonwealth and Protectorate. The Test Acts emerged from the restored monarchy’s efforts to secure the established church.
Catholic Emancipation: The removal of legal and political disabilities imposed on Roman Catholics in Britain and Ireland, culminating in 1829. Its legislation dismantled the restrictions that the Test Acts had helped establish.
Act of Uniformity 1662: An English statute requiring clergy and teachers to use the Book of Common Prayer and conform to the Church of England. It regulated worship and church employment, whereas the Test Acts targeted civil and military officeholders.
Test Act 1673: An English statute requiring holders of civil and military office under the Crown to take Anglican communion and reject transubstantiation. It imposed the central religious qualification associated with the Test Acts.
Cavalier Parliament: The English Parliament that sat from 1661 to 1679 and supported Charles II and the restored Church of England. It enacted the Corporation Act and helped create the legal framework for religious tests.
Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829: A British law that admitted Catholics to Parliament and most public offices while removing many remaining legal disabilities. It ended many exclusions maintained by religious tests, though it did not repeal every such law.
Toleration Act 1689: An English law granting limited freedom of worship to many Protestant dissenters who accepted specified oaths. It eased penalties for dissenting worship but left the Test Acts’ officeholding restrictions largely intact.
Declaration against transubstantiation: A formal rejection of the Catholic doctrine that bread and wine become Christ’s body and blood in the Eucharist. The 1673 Test Act made this declaration a condition of public office.
Popish Plot: A fabricated 1678 conspiracy alleging a Catholic plot to kill Charles II and restore Catholicism in England. The panic intensified suspicion of Catholics already excluded from public office by the Test Acts.

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