These two pieces of legislation were enacted at the height of anti-Catholic feeling during the reign of Charles II.
Test Act 1673
In 1673 – the same year that the king's brother and heir James, duke of York, married the Spanish Catholic Mary of Modena – Parliament passed the first Test Act, the full title of which was 'An act for preventing dangers which may happen from popish recusants'. This banned anyone from public office who would not:
- swear an 'oath of supremacy' – that the king was the supreme governor of the Church of England (and not the pope)
- swear an oath of allegiance
- take communion according to the rite of the Church of England
- sign a declaration denying the key Catholic tenet of transubstantiation – that the bread and wine in the Mass were the actual body and blood of Christ
Test Act 1678
The first Test Act did not extend to peers, but five years later this was rectified. Now membership of both Houses of Parliament was banned to those not satisfying the strictures of the two Acts. According to the historian Norman Davies, this meant that 'both domestic and foreign policy became infected by bigotry.'
The Test Acts were both abolished by George IV in 1828. However, the Act of Settlement 1701 continues to prevent a Catholic or even someone married to a Catholic from ascending the British throne.
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 The Catholic Test
www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Ar
ticles/000/000/002/956qpnnx.asp?pg=1
Fascinating 2003 article by Hugh Hewitt in the American magazine The Weekly Standard, in which he draws parallels between the effect of the Test Acts on the politics of the 17th and 18th centuries and alleged anti-Catholic bias against potential office holders in the US today.
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