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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 774: CATHOLIC CLAIMS.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

CATHOLIC CLAIMS.

On the 3rd of May, after numerous petitions had been presented both for and against the claims of Roman Catholics, this great question of internal policy was again brought before the commons by the eloquent Grattan. The causes of disqualification, he observed, were of three kinds—the combination of the Catholics, the clanger of a pretender, and the power of the pope. Grattan asserted, that not only had all these causes ceased, but that the consequences annexed to them were no more; and he concluded by moving for a committee of the whole house to take into consideration the laws by which oaths or declarations are required to be taken or made as qualifications for the enjoyment of office, or the exercise of civil functions so far as the Roman Catholics were affected by them. This motion was lost by a majority of only two in a full house; but a corresponding proposition made in the lords by Earl Donoughmore was lost by a majority of one hundred and forty-seven against one hundred and six. Subsequently another effort was made in the lords by Earl Grey; but, as before, without effect. The bill Earl Grey introduced was for abrogating so much of the acts of the 25th and 30th of Charles the Second, as prescribed to all officers, civil and military, and to all members of both houses of parliament, a declaration against the doctrines of transubstantiation, and the invocation of saints. His motion was rejected by a majority of one hundred and forty-two against eighty-two.