At such a time it may well be supposed that the attention of the new
ministry was too fully occupied with measures necessary for the conduct
of the war to leave it much time for domestic legislation. Yet even its
first session was not entirely barren.
In the first excitement of the Restoration, when the nation was still
exasperated at the recollection of what it had suffered under the
triumphant domination of the Puritans, two laws had been framed to
chastise them, conceived in a spirit as intolerant and persecuting as
had dictated the very worst of their own. One, which was called the
Conventicle Act, inflicted on all persons above the age of sixteen, who
should be present at any religious service performed in any manner
differently from the service of the Church of England, in any
meeting-house, where more than five persons besides the occupiers of the
house should be present, severe penalties, rising gradually to
transportation; and gave a single magistrate authority to convict and to
pass sentence on the offenders. The other, commonly known as the Five
Mile Act, forbade all ministers, of any sect, who did not subscribe to
the Act of Uniformity, and who refused to swear to their belief in the
doctrine of passive obedience, from teaching in any school, and from
coming within five miles of any city, corporate town, or borough sending
members to Parliament, or any town or village in which they themselves
had resided as ministers.
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