Page:Studies in Irish History, 1649-1775 (1903).djvu/339

After Limerick convicted of saying Mass, taking or keeping a school, or exercising any religious function was guilty of "præmunire," and therefore liable to perpetual imprisonment; £1000 reward was offered for the apprehension of persons guilty of such acts.. No Papist was allowed to purchase land, to send his children to be educated abroad, er to refuse a proper maintenance to any of his children who might become Protestant.

In Anne's reign the Penal Code was greatly elaborated. The Act for banishing priests and preventing them coming from abroad was extended to secular priests, and persons harbouring, concealing, or relieving ecclesiastics were made liable to the penalties of the Act. At the same time a Bill was passed for registering the Popish clergy. All secular priests were bound to go before a magistrate, register their names, and take out a license. They had to give two sureties to be of good behaviour and not to move to another part of the country. The penalty for infringing the Act was imprisonment pending transportation. Had these Acts been carried out in all their verbal severity, the Catholic priesthood of Ireland would have died out in the course of a generation.

But the chief measure of this session of 1703 was the famous "Act to prevent the growth of 327