Empowered the justices of the peace in London and the home counties to arrest all “Papists” and submit them to an oath of allegiance. If they refused they would be “esteemed and adjudged a Popish Recusant Convict” and they would be forbidden to remain within ten mile of the cities of London or Westminster. The Act comes to literary attention in particular because it forced the father of Alexander Pope to give up his business as a linen merchant in Lombard Street and remove the family first to Hammersmith, and then to Binfield in Windsor Forest. This act compounded the restraints already placed by the Test Act and Corporation Act, and prefaced further acts against the catholics, notably that of 1700 which disqualified Catholics …
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Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Exclusion of Catholics from London". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 January 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1462, accessed 23 November 2024.]