Uniformity, Acts of

UNIFORMITY, ACTS OF: The name of several acts of Parliament establishing the worship and ritual of the Church of England. The first, passed Jan. 21, 1549, set forth the penalties for the neglect to use the Prayer Book of Edward VI., which were, for the first offense, loss of the income of a benefice for a year, and imprisonment for six months; for the second, loss of all benefices, and imprisonment for one year; for the third, imprisonment for life. The second act was passed Apr.. 6, 1552, and established the second Prayer Book. These acts were repealed under Queen Mary, in Oct., 1553. The third act, under Queen Elizabeth (passed, after a strong opposition, Apr. 28, 1559), established the new Prayer Book under penalties similar to those of Edward VI., subjected all who were absent from church without excuse to a fine of one shilling, and gave to the sovereign liberty to " ordain and publish such further ceremonies and rites as may be most for the advancement of the church," etc. A fourth act, part of the systematic repression of the Puritans known as the Clarendon Code, was passed May 19, 1682, and prescribed episcopal ordination for all ministers, and enforced the new revision of the Prayer Book. It required all ministers to give their unfeigned assent and consent to everything in the book, to read the Prayer Book service on some Sunday before the feast of St. Bartholomew (Hug. 24), and to swear "that it is not lawful, on any pretense whatsoever, to take up arms against the king." About 2,000 clergymen, some of them the most distinguished in England, unable to conform, were deprived of their livings. This act, the most far-reaching of all in its consequences, also formally disavowed the validity of all but episcopal ordinations, and marked the close of the efforts which had been going on ever since Elizabeth's accession to bring the

Church of England into closer connection with the Reformed communions of the continent. The Act of Uniformity was made practically inoperative, though not formally repealed, by the Act of Tolera tion (see Toleration, Act of) under William and Mary, May 24, 1689.

Bibliography: The text is given in Gee and Hardy, Docu ments, pp. 358 sqq., 369 sqq., 458 sqq., in part also in Robinson, European History, ii. 256-259. Consult: H. N. Birt, The Elizabethan Religious Settlement, pp. 56, 88 206, London, 1907; S. R. Gardiner, Students' Hist. of England, pp. 429, 585, new ad., London and New York, 1895; J. H. Overton, The Church in England, 2 vols., London, 1897; J. Gairdaer, The English Church in the 16th Century, pp. 262, 267, 302-303, 324, ib. 1903; W. H. Hutton, The English Church (18.6-1714), p. 191, ib. 1903.