UISTORl' 



which hi* h:ul boon educated. Queen Mary, in 1553, repealed 

 law*, luit tin y wore ro-enaotud with fresh rigours by 



ho came to tho thrum- in 1558. At 



laws wore !n;i<li>, it WUH not contemplated that them 



i-mil.l bo Much a thing aa dissent from tho nowly-etitablwhod 



Church of England, but when tho Puritans arose the men who 



is iui'l i>'hti-.il freedom against a 



Tin lor qaeon, and against all tho Stuart kingti fresh laws were 

 1 to chuck them, and fottors tho most oppressive and tho 

 .anuwing wore forged for them as they had boon forged 

 for the Roman Catholics. Every one within tho realm was 

 I to go to church on Sunday, or to bo fined twelvepeneo 

 a sain in tlioso days equal to moro than two days' wages 

 for a laliouriu',' man and those who did not go for a month 

 iJ-i. Su!.-c.|iii-ntly, in tho reign of Charles II. 

 . it was ordered that no one should bo admitted to 

 offioo in any corporate town who had not within a year pre- 

 viously taken tho Lord's Supper according to tho rites of tho 

 Church of England, and certain oaths were prescribed to 

 persons elected which no Romanist could take. Tho Book of 

 Common Prayer was ordered to bo used in every place for 

 public worship, and no ono was allowed to bo a schoolmaster, 

 or to have anything to do with the instruction of yonth 

 (dancing, for instance), unless he had signed a declaration 

 of conformity to tho Liturgy. Meetings of moro than five 

 persons for the purpose of worshipping God otherwise than by 

 using the Prayer Book were liable to be broken up by force, 

 and the preachers fined. The Test Act, passed in the twenty- 

 fifth year of Charles II., required all civil and military officers, 

 and all persons in tho service of the Crown, to tako the oaths 

 of allegiance and supremacy, to declare their disbelief in the 

 doctrine of transubstantiation, and to receive the sacrament 

 in the Church of England ; and another law of the some 

 kin forbade any one to sit in Parliament or to vote for a 

 member until ho hod token such oaths aa no Romanist could 

 possibly take. 



William and Mary (1688-1702) assented to a law granting 

 Protestant dissenters the right of meeting for public worsliip 

 if the place of meeting were duly registered ; but the laws 

 which gave this and certain other privileges to Protestants, 

 welded yet closer the rivets of intolerance on tho unfortunate 

 Catholics, who were still forbidden to meet, or to celebrate tho 

 Moss. Statutes of George I. (1714-1727) and George H. 

 (1727-1760) confirmed tho odious Test Act, and extended it. 

 Not only were all officers in the army and navy, and all persons 

 in public posts still compelled to desecrate the sacrament of 

 the Lord's Supper, and to tako startling oaths, but all eccle- 

 siastical and collegiate persons, all preachers, teachers, school- 

 masters, lawyers, and high constables were compelled, under 

 pain of deprivation, fine, and forfeiture, to tako the oaths of 

 supremacy and allegiance, and to abjure the Pope and the 

 Pretender. 



In 1779, the year before the words at the beginning of this 

 article were spoken, an Act was passed relieving the Protestant 

 dissenters from almost all their disabilities, those created by the 

 Test Act and Corporation Act excepted. But the people thus 

 enfranchised could not bear that a slight concession made tho 

 year before to Romanists, and allowing them to meet for worship 

 under certain restrictions, should remain unrepealed. It was not 

 enough that the Romanist should be shut out from every post 

 of every kind in the public service, that he should be precluded 

 from getting a living by instructing in any branch of knowledge, 

 and that ho should be unable to practise at tho bar ; the lately 

 persecuted felt they could not erjoy their freedom if their 

 fellow-sufferers by the law were also relieved, though only 

 in part.* 



A number of organisations, calling themselves Protestant 

 Associations, had been formed in England and Scotland for the 

 purpose of obtaining tho removal of disabilities from Protestant 

 dissenters. They ohoso Lord George Gordon for their chief, 

 and had they searched tho whole country over they could not 

 have found a representative moro thoroughly unsuited to guide 



them to their legitimate aspiration*, though it mart be nnnfsesod 

 then wan no fitter incarnation of thir weaknesses and their 

 folly. They w.-ro indignant at the alight conoestton given to 

 l<ivr.<;hri*tiaiw, and they rewired, if possibU, to procure 

 tho repeal of it, and if that WM not to be, then they would do 

 whatever their too ready hand* might find to do. At Ui.- 

 suggestions of Lord George, petition* were got op and name- 

 rounly signed, begging the Legislature to dolirer the land from 

 the guilt of allowing certain of the inhabttante to pray together! 

 Every mean* were taken to make the petition from the Pro- 

 testants of London a " monster petition." AdvertisemenU went 

 waned, speeches were mode to inflame the public mind, and per- 



sonal entreaties were not wanting to induce the people to add 

 their names. 



Towards the end of May, 1780, a crowded meeting WM held 

 in Coaohmakent' Hall, where Lord George spoke at length, 

 addressing the people in a highly inflammatory harangue. He 

 promised to present their petition to the Home of Commons, 

 of which he was a member, if they would attend him with not 

 less than 20,000 persons, on the 2nd June. ** 



It was not till 1829 that tho Catholic Emancipation Act allowed 

 Roman Catholics to sit in Parliament, or to vote at elections, nor was it 

 till the present reign that a fall measure of freedom was meted out 

 to the professors of all religions, including the Jewish religion, and 

 that the law both In principle and practice ceased to persecute. 



passed pledging the Association to meet with as many friends 

 as they could muster on that day in St. George's Fields ; and 

 in order the better to distinguish those of the " true Protes- 

 tant " party, it was agreed that the petitioners and their frmvfo 

 should wear blue cockades in their hats. 



On Friday, the 2nd of June, Lord George Gordon met his 

 followers, some 60,000 strong, in St. George's Fields, sad after 

 addressing them in a foolisu speech, full of intolerant and 

 strife-stirring words, marched them, six abreast, over London 

 Bridge, up Fleet Street and the Strand to Palace Yard, of 

 which they took riotous possession. The Houses hod not yet 

 met when tho processionists arrived ; there were not any police 

 to keep order, and the troops had not any instructions. 



Very soon the disposition of the assemblage was apparent. 

 Thousands had only availed themselves of the Protestants' 

 petition to indulge their natural instincts to commit robbery 

 and violence, and as soon as the members of either House of 

 Parliament began to arrive, these persons commenced to be 

 natural. Earl Mansfield, one of the most upright and able 

 Chief Justices England ever had, had agreed to preside over 

 the House of Lords instead of Lord Chancellor Thurlow, who 

 was ill at Tunbridge. As soon as his carriage come into 

 Palace Yard it was attacked, the windows were broken, the 

 body was much damaged, and the venerable old aian with 

 difficulty escaped into the House, with torn robes and disordered 

 wig. Tho Archbishop of York was subjected to like violence, 

 and the Bishop of Lincoln, whose carriage was literally de- 

 molished, was taken fainting into a house, whence he escaped 

 in disguise over .the leads. The Duke of Northumberland was 

 pulled out of his carriage and robbed of purse and watch ; the 

 Lord President of the Council and other peers were also so 

 roughly handled that they could hardly get into We 

 Hall. The Lords continued to arrive, and busir 



but little progress,, had been made when Lord Montfort rushed 

 in to say that Lord Boston was in the hands of the mob, 

 and in imminent danger of his life. One who was present 

 says : " At this instant it is hardly possible to conceive a 

 more grotesque appearance than the House exhibited. Some 

 of their lordships with their hair about their shoulders : others 

 smutted with dirt ; most of them as pale as the ghost in 

 ' Hamlet;' and all of them standing up in their several places, 

 and speaking at the same instant. One lord proposing to 

 send for the Guards, another for the justices or civil magis- 

 trates, many crying out, ' Adjourn, adjourn 1 ' while the skies 

 resounded with tho huzzas, shoutings, or hootings in Palace 

 Yard." 



Lord Boston escaped from the crowd just as the House of 

 Lords were proposing to go out and rescue him ; but it being 

 impossible to go on with business, the House adjourned at 

 eight o'clock, and its members managed to get away unper- 

 ceived by side ways and passages. 



Some 200 members of tho House of Commons ssnninUed. 

 but the noise of the Protestant rioters almost drowned their 

 voices in debate. Lord George Gordon presented the mntintar 

 petition, and moved that tho House should consider it in com- 

 mittee forthwith. An amendment was moved that it should 

 not bo considered till the 6th instant (four days on), but tho 

 BCUSO of the HOOK could not ba taken, because tho rioters had 



