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De faithful and bear true allegiance to his Majesty King George the Fourth, and will defend him to the utmost of my power against all conspiracies and attempts whatever, which shall be made against his person, crown, or dignity; and I will do my utmost endeavour to disclose and make known to his Majesty, his heirs and successors, all treasons and traitorous conspiracies which may be formed against him or them : And I do faithfully promise to maintain, support, and defend, to the utmost of my power, the succession of the crown, which succession, by an Act intituled 'An Act for the further limitation of the crown, and better securing the rights and liberties of the subject,' is and stands limited to the Princess Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and the heirs of her body, being Protestants; hereby utterly renouncing and abjuring any obedience or allegiance unto any other person claiming or pretending a right to the crown of this realm: And I do further declare, That it is not an article of my faith, and that I do renounce, reject, and abjure the opinion, that princes excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, or any other authority of the see of Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or by any person whatsoever : And I do declare that I do not believe that the Pope of Rome, or any other foreign prince, prelate, person, state, or potentate, hath or ought to have any temporal or civil jurisdiction, power, superiority, or pre-eminence, directly or indirectly, within this realm. I do swear, That I will defend to the utmost of my power the settlement of property within this realm, as established by the laws: And I do hereby disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any intention to subvert the present Church establishment as settled by law within this realm: And I do solemnly swear, That I never will exercise any privilege to which I am or may become entitled, to disturb or weaken the Protestant religion or Protestant government in the United Kingdom: And I do solemnly, in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare, That I do make this declaration, and every part thereof, in the plain and ordinary sense of the words of this oath, without any evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation whatsoever. So help me God."

Provision is made for using the name of any future reigning sovereign instead of the name of George the Fourth.

Catholics are expressly barred from sitting or voting in either House until they have taken the foregoing oath, subject to the penalties prescribed and set forth in our previous chapter on the oaths of exclusion.

On offering to vote or become a candidate at any parliamentary election, Catholics are expressly subject to be challenged to take the foregoing oath.

Catholic priests are expressly barred under penalties from being candidates for or members of the House of Commons, and celebration of Catholic rites is to be evidence that the celebrant is a priest. A member becoming a priest must vacate his seat, subject to the penalties. There is no such bar as to the House of Lords.

The naval, military, and civil services are open to Catholics, excepting Guardians and Justices of the United Kingdom, Lord Chancellor, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Lord Lieutenant or Deputy Lieutenant of Ireland, and High Commissioner of the Church of Scotland.

Lay corporations are expressly opened to Catholics, but they must not vote in any case of ecclesiastical appointment.

Catholics are expressly excluded from offices in the Established Church, ecclesiastical courts, universities, or colleges or schools thereof; and are disqualified as patrons of Church livings. Wherever a living falls into the control of an office filled by a Catholic, the gift is, for the time being, to be with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Catholic ministers are barred from taking part in conferring ecclesiastical appointments.

Catholic bishops are expressly forbidden to adopt the title belonging to any bishop or dean of the Established Church, under a penalty of £100.

Judicial officers are forbidden to attend as such at any place of worship except of the Established Church.

Catholic priests must not perform any Catholic rite or ceremony, or wear the habits of their order, save within their usual places of

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worship, or in private houses, under a penalty of £50 for every offence.

Jesuits and persons under monastic vows are required to register themselves with the clerk of the peace of their respective counties within six months after passing of the Act, under a penalty of £50.

Natural born subjects who come under the previous head, being abroad, may return to this country subject to registration as aforesaid; otherwise, all Jesuits and persons under monastic vows, arriving in the country after the passing of the Act, are made liable to banishment for life; but any Secretary of State is at liberty to authorize the visits and residence of such persons.

The formal admission of a Jesuit or member to any monastic order involves punishment as for a criminal misdemeanour, and every person so admitted is liable to banishment for life.

Any person sentenced to banishment, as before provided, who remains in the United Kingdom thirty days afterwards, may be conveyed by order of the privy council to any place abroad; and any person found in this country three months after sentence of banishment is liable to transportation for life.

Nuns, and all female members of religious orders, are expressly exempted from interference, so that nunneries are legal under the Act, though monasteries are illegal under the provisions just previously described.

The penalty prescribed by the Act for refusing or omitting to take the oath is £200, which would seem to absolve Catholics from the penalty of £500 to which other members of Parliament are liable for the like omission; but the Act upon that point is silent.

CHAPTER XXIX.

EXTINGUISHMENT OF THE "FORTY-SHILLING ' VOTERS.

HE election of O'Connell for Clare was confessedly the principal

such an obviously popular character, an impression was made in official circles to the effect that his success was due to the multitude of the lowest class of persons then entrusted with votes; and it was believed or hoped that by extinguishing their right to vote, they would be properly punished, that the Protestant opponents of O'Connell would be appropriately avenged, and that the door would be finally closed against the election of O'Connell or any one who could supply his place in popular estimation.

Acting, therefore, upon the usual course with regard to Ireland, the government determined, while appearing to make concessions, to indulge in a corresponding amount of retaliation. It would be an excellent manœuvre, they thought, if the ostensible intention to admit Catholics to Parliament were accompanied by enactments that might possibly prevent any more Catholics from being elected. At any rate, they made up their minds to try. So, simultaneously with the socalled Emancipation Act, they managed to pass a companion that was decently disguised under the title of "An Act to amend certain Acts of the Parliament of Ireland relative to the election of members to serve in Parliament, and to regulate the qualification of persons entitled to vote at the election of knights of the shire in Ireland."

This Act had exclusive reference to forty-shilling freeholders,” who were first created for Ireland by an Act passed in 33 Henry VIII. c. 1, so long ago as 1542, which provided that "every electour of the said

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knights to dispend and have lands and tenements of estate of freehold within the said counties, at the least to the yearly value of fortie shillings over and above all charges."

In 1795 (35 Geo. III. c. 29), forty-shilling freeholders, as before provided, were confirmed in their right to vote, but the Act introduced a number of complicated provisions, under which, or as suggested by which, it occurred to the dominating landowners to create voters. This was done by granting leases for lives, which were permitted to be registered as of the same tenure as freeholds; and by this means each landlord, being desirous of multiplying voters in his interest at the least possible sacrifice to himself, these leases for lives were purposely granted in reference to the smallest area of land that would, with the building thereon, barely qualify the life holder to vote under the fortyshilling franchise. The whole thing seems to have been a fraud from beginning to end, but as it answered the purpose of the powers that were, the voters being under the severe eye and potent influence of the dominant classes, the system had been suffered to go on, to the encouragement and fostering of extremely small holdings to the curse of the whole community.

The election of O'Connell for Clare changed the views of the county magnates. Their wretched machinery for securing electoral corruption then broke down so signally that its destruction became necessary from the point of view of those who had so carefully initiated and preserved it; and the Act of 1829, assented to on the same day as the Emancipation Act, abolished forty-shilling freehold qualifications in Ireland, though leaving them untouched in England, so that the mean and corrupt motive of the Act was very obvious.

It provided that "from and after the day next after the passing of this Act, no person should be admitted to vote at any election of any knight of the shire to serve in the Parliament of the United Kingdom for any county in Ireland unless such person shall have an estate of freehold in lands, tenements, or hereditaments in such county, of the clear yearly value of ten pounds at the least over and above all charges, except only public or parliamentary taxes, county, church, or parish