The first of these new laws was entitled the “Corporation Act” (1661).  It ordered all holders of municipal offices to renounce the Covenant[2] which had been put in force in 1647, and to take the sacrament of the Church of England.  Next, a new Act of Uniformity (1662) (S382) enforced the use of the Episcopal Prayer Book upon all clergymen and congregations.  This was followed by the Conventicle Act[3] (1664), which forbade the meeting of any religious assemblies except such as worshiped according to the Established Church of England.  Lastly, the Five-Mile Act (1665) forbade all dissenting ministers to teach in schools, or to settle within five miles of an incorporated town.

[2] Covenant:  the oath or agreement to maintain the Presbyterian faith and worship.  It originated in Scotland (S438). [3] See, too, on these acts, the Summary of Constitutional History in the Appendix, p. xix, S20.

The second of these stringent retaliatory statutes, the Act of Uniformity, drove two thousand Presbyterian ministers from their parishes in a single day, and reduced them to the direst distress.  The able-bodied among them might indeed pick up a precarious livelihood by hard labor, but the old and the weak soon found their refuge in the grave.

Those who dared to resist these intolerant and inhuman laws were punished with fines, imprisonment, or slavery.  The Scottish Parliament abolished Presbyterianism and restored Episcopacy.  It vied with the Cavalier or King’s party in England in persecution of the Dissenters,[4] and especially of the Covenanters (S438).

[4] The Scottish Parliament granted what was called the “Indulgence” to Presbyterian ministers who held moderate views.  The extreme Covenanters regarded these “indulged Presbyterians” as deserters and traitors who were both weak and wicked.  For this reason they hated them worse than they did the Episcopalians.  See Burton’s “Scotland,” VII, 457-468.

Claverhouse, who figures as the “Bonny Dundee” of Sir Walter Scott, hunted the Covenanters with bugle and bloodhound, like so many deer; and his men hanged and drowned those who gathered secretly in glens and caves to worship God.[1] The father of a family would be dragged from his cottage by the soldiers, asked if he would take the test of conformity to the Church of England and the oath of allegiance to King Charles II; if he refused, the officer in command gave the order, “Make ready—­take aim—­fire!”—­and there lay the corpse of the rebel.

[1] See the historical poem of the “Maiden Martyr of Scotland,” in the collection of “Heroic Ballads,” Ginn and Company.

Among the multitudes who suffered in England for religion’s sake was a poor tinker and day laborer named John Bunyan.  He had served against the King in the civil wars, and later had become converted to Puritanism, and turned exhorter and itinerant preacher.  He was arrested, while preaching in a farmhouse, and convicted of having “devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to church.”