Page:Studies in Irish History, 1649-1775 (1903).djvu/96

Charles II. liable for the first offence to forfeit "all their goods and chattels, as well real as personal"; for the second to incur the penalties of præmunire, as provided by the English Act of 1393; and for the third "to suffer pains of death, and other penalties, forfeitures and losses, as in cases of high treason." The provisions of the Act of Uniformity were still more flagrantly oppressive. By this Act every clergyman celebrating any religious service other than that legally established, every layman assisting at such service or contributing to the support of such clergyman, and every person, lay or clerical, reflecting on the liturgy of the Established Church, was rendered liable to penalties which amounted, on a third conviction, to confiscation of property and perpetual imprisonment. A further clause of the same Act provided that all persons should be present at the Anglican worship on Sundays and Holy Days, and should be punished in case of absence by a fine.

These laws, however, had never been very rigidly enforced, and they had long been wholly obsolete. The actual condition of the Catholics during this reign was altogether different from what we should imagine, if we were to judge solely by the statute book. At no time since the Reformation had they suffered so little serious persecu- 84