ABSTRACT
The issue of Catholic Emancipation (or relief) was one of the great political divides of the later part of this period. It involved freeing Catholics from disabilities that prevented them from holding office, voting or serving in Parliament. Unlike Protestant Dissenters, Catholics had received no freedom of worship under the 1689 Toleration Act. Though in practice they did receive a degree of toleration, they were formally excluded from ministerial and administrative office, commissions in the armed services and from universities under a series of Acts known collectively as the Penal Laws.
