ABSTRACT
An Act for the Relief of His Majesty’s Roman Catholic Subjects (13 April, 1829) 10. George IV cap. 7. The Act as passed provided safeguards for the maintenance of the Protestant Church Establishment and the survival of the ‘Protestant Constitution’. There were provisions against Catholics exercising certain rights of patronage, enjoying named offices, and even a clause—never carried into effect—for the suppression of religious orders of men (though not of women). The main purpose of Emancipation was achieved by a simple alteration of the Parliamentary oath, and this was effected by the first clause. The two ‘wings’ of the Act, providing further safeguards, came in separate statutory enactments: the legal proscription of O’Connell’s Catholic Association, and the 40 shilling disfranchisement in Ireland.
