The Age of George III

I am happy that you are using this web site and hope that you found it useful. Unfortunately, the cost of making this material freely available is increasing, so if you have found the site useful and would like to contribute towards its continuation, I would greatly appreciate it. Click the button to go to Paypal and make a donation.

The Williamite Penal Laws

Eighty percent of the population of Ireland, owning one third of the land, were Roman Catholics. All suffered from the Penal laws of 1697-1727. From the reign of Elizabeth I when the Church of England became the Established Church, there had been attempts made to eradicate Catholicism from the British Isles. Under William III this was enshrined in a series of laws that Edmund Burke described as "well-fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man".

Examples of the Penal Laws

• Catholics could not vote
• Catholics were excluded from all professions and public offices
• Catholics were not allowed a university education
• Catholics could not teach children
• Catholics could not be the guardian of a child
• Catholic men could not marry Protestant women. Catholic women could marry Protestant men because children were brought up in the faith of their father: any children from this sort of mixed marriage would be brought up as Protestants
• Catholics could not buy land
• Catholics could not own a horse worth more than £5
• Catholics could not be given, be sold, or be bequeathed land by Protestants
• All land owned by a Catholic had to be equally divided among his sons on his death, unless one son was a Protestant, in which case he got it all. The law of primogeniture was suspended for Catholics
• All priests had to be registered. All Bishops were exiled.
• Catholic Churches could have neither bells nor steeples
• Pilgrimages were forbidden

Priests did not officially exist since Anglicanism was the established Church. Priests relied on their congregations for gifts of food and money for their survival, while Anglican clergy had vast estates and few parishioners. Roman Catholics had to pay tithes (one tenth of their income) to the Anglican Church, and often paid rents as well.