Key Terms You Must Know

📖 Key Terms You Must Know

Clarendon Code

The collective name for four Acts of Parliament (1661-65) that established strict Anglican conformity and persecuted Protestant Dissenters. The four acts were: the Corporation Act (1661), the Act of Uniformity (1662), the Conventicle Act (1664), and the Five Mile Act (1665). Named after Charles's chief minister, the Earl of Clarendon, though Parliament drove the legislation and Charles had reservations about its harshness. The Code made it illegal to worship outside the Church of England and excluded Dissenters from local government, universities, and professions.

Nonconformists / Dissenters

Protestants who refused to conform to the Church of England after the Restoration — including Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists, and Quakers. Perhaps 5% of the English population. They were targeted by the Clarendon Code. Many became successful merchants and manufacturers, partly because they were excluded from professions and universities controlled by the established Church. John Bunyan (Baptist, imprisoned 1660-72) is the most famous individual case study.

Test Act (1673)

An Act of Parliament requiring everyone in public office to take Anglican communion, renounce Catholic beliefs (the "Declaration against Transubstantiation"), and take the Oath of Supremacy. Its most dramatic consequence was forcing James, Duke of York (heir to the throne), to resign as Lord High Admiral — publicly confirming that he was Catholic. This directly triggered the Exclusion Crisis (1679-81), as Parliament tried to exclude a Catholic from the succession.

Act of Uniformity (1662) / Great Ejection

The Act requiring all clergy to use the revised Book of Common Prayer and to accept episcopal (bishop-led) ordination. Approximately 2,000 ministers who refused were ejected from their parishes on "Black Bartholomew's Day," 24 August 1662. This was the largest mass removal of clergy in English history. The ejected ministers became the leadership of Nonconformist Dissent and continued preaching illegally.

Declaration of Indulgence (1672)

Charles II's attempt to suspend the penal laws against both Catholics and Protestant Dissenters using his royal prerogative. Parliament refused to fund the Third Dutch War unless Charles withdrew it, which he did in 1673. Parliament then passed the Test Act. The episode showed both Charles's Catholic sympathies and the limits of royal prerogative — Parliament could force the king to back down by withholding money.

Recusancy

The refusal to attend Church of England services. Catholics who did not attend Anglican church were technically recusants and liable to fines. In practice, these fines were rarely collected against Catholic gentry, who were often protected by sympathetic local magistrates. Recusancy laws remained on the statute book but were unevenly enforced throughout the Restoration period.