The Sacramental Test Act 1828 (9 Geo. IV, c. 17) was an Act passed by the

British Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremacy ...

. It repealed the requirement that government officials take communion in the Church of England. Sir

Robert Peel Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, (5 February 1788 – 2 July 1850) was a British Conservative statesman who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1834–1835 and 1841–1846) simultaneously serving as Chancellor of the Excheque ...

took the lead for the Tory government in the repeal and collaborated with Anglican Church leaders.

Background

The

Corporation Act 1661 The Corporation Act of 1661 was an Act of the Parliament of England (13 Cha. II. St. 2 c. 1). It belonged to the general category of test acts, designed for the express purpose of restricting public offices in England to members of the Church ...

laid down that all mayors and officials in municipal corporations had to receive the sacrament of

Holy Communion The Eucharist (; from Greek , , ), also known as Holy Communion and the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others. According to the New Testament, the rite was institu ...

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 The Solemn League and Covenant was an agreement between the Scottish Covenanters and the leaders of the English Parliamentarians in 1643 during the First English Civil War, a theatre of conflict in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. On 17 August 1 ...

to be false. Under the Test Act 1673, all holders of civil and military offices and places of trust under the Crown had to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy and receive the Anglican sacrament.Hole, p. 239. However, in practice the full force of the law was not exacted against Protestant

Dissenters A dissenter (from the Latin ''dissentire'', "to disagree") is one who dissents (disagrees) in matters of opinion, belief, etc. Usage in Christianity Dissent from the Anglican church In the social and religious history of England and Wales, and ...

: an annual Indemnity Act was frequently passed that ensured that Dissenters were allowed to hold public office. On 17 February 1827, the

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is n ...

Lord Liverpool Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, (7 June 1770 – 4 December 1828) was a British Tory statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1812 to 1827. He held many important cabinet offices such as Foreign Secret ...

suffered a stroke.

George Canning George Canning (11 April 17708 August 1827) was a British Tory statesman. He held various senior cabinet positions under numerous prime ministers, including two important terms as Foreign Secretary, finally becoming Prime Minister of the Unit ...

succeeded him in April. The formation of Canning's ministry revolved around Catholic emancipation, with the anti-Catholics

Lord Eldon Earl of Eldon, in the County Palatine of Durham, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1821 for the lawyer and politician John Scott, 1st Baron Eldon, Lord Chancellor from 1801 to 1806 and again from 1807 to 1827. H ...

, the

Duke of Wellington Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain, serving twice as prime minister o ...

, Sir

, Lord Bathurst and Lord Westmoreland refusing to serve. Canning persuaded the Whigs Henry Brougham and

George Tierney George Tierney PC (20 March 1761 – 25 January 1830) was an Irish Whig politician. For much of his career he was in opposition to the governments of William Pitt and Lord Liverpool. From 1818 to 1821 he was Leader of the Opposition in the H ...

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 (March 17685 February 1838) was an English politician. He is best known for his insight into social conditions as revealed by his writings, which were published in 1903. Life Creevey was the son of William Creevey, a Liverpool me ...

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, (18 August 1792 – 28 May 1878), known by his courtesy title Lord John Russell before 1861, was a British Whig and Liberal statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1852 and ag ...

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

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell by Sir Francis Grant detail

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. He managed to persuade them to let the Bill pass through the Lords; in the vote 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". The former Lord Chancellor in the previous Tory administrations, Lord Eldon, wrote to his daughter in April: John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon by Sir Thomas Lawrence

John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon by Sir Thomas Lawrence

...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 Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford (13 April 17325 August 1792), better known by his courtesy title Lord North, which he used from 1752 to 1790, was 12th Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782. He led Great Britain through most o ...
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.Clark, p. 396.

The Whig peer Lord Holland wrote to Henry Fox 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 In legislative debate, a wrecking amendment (also called a poison pill amendment or killer amendment) is an amendment made by a legislator who disagrees with the principles of a bill and who seeks to make it useless (by moving amendments to either ...

s to modify the Bill but these were defeated by large majorities. The Bishop of Llandaff, however, managed to get included into the declaration 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.Clark, p. 396, n. 165. 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 is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in othe ...

Effects

The Act led to "an explosion of pamphlets on the question of

Catholic emancipation Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restricti ...

throughout the remainder of that year and on into the next". Immediately after the Act passed Parliament Sir

Francis Burdett Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet (25 January 1770 – 23 January 1844) was a British politician and Member of Parliament who gained notoriety as a proponent (in advance of the Chartists) of universal male suffrage, equal electoral districts, vo ...

in the Commons and Lord Lansdowne in the Lords raised the issue of Catholic emancipation.Clark, p. 397. The

Catholic Relief Act 1829 The Catholic Relief Act 1829, also known as the Catholic Emancipation Act 1829, was passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1829. It was the culmination of the process of Catholic emancipation throughout the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

repealed the Test Act 1678 that had 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 the emancipation of the Jews in the United Kingdom until 1858.

Atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...

s remained barred until 1886.

Notes

{{reflist, 2

References

*J. C. D. Clark, ''English Society, 1688–1832. Ideology, social structure and political practice during the ancien regime'' (Cambridge University Press, 1985). *Norman Gash, ''Mr Secretary Peel'' (1961) pp: 460–65 * Richard A. Gaunt, "Peel's Other Repeal: The Test and Corporation Acts, 1828," ''Parliamentary History'' (2014) 33#1 pp 243–262 *Boyd Hilton, ''A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People? England. 1783–1846'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006). *Robert Hole, ''Pulpits, politics and public order in England. 1760–1832'' (Cambridge University Press, 1989). *R. A. Melikan, ''John Scott, Lord Eldon, 1751–1838. The Duty of Loyalty'' (Cambridge University Press, 1999).

Background

Passage

Effects

Notes

References

Further reading