There were various statutes enacted over the course of time regarding religion, as follows:
All ministers, school teachers, mayors and other town officials, including magistrates, were required to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy [of the King over the church] or be removed from office.
A great number of people refused to come to their parish church or other public place where common prayer and sacraments were administered and the word of God was preached according to the established church. The morning and afternoon Sunday services with sermons, sometimes by guest preachers, continued. So factions and schisms developed. In response, the king changed the Book of Common Prayer and its prayers were required by statute in 1662 to be read by some priest or deacon in all the churches and places of public worship wherever and whenever there was any preaching or lecturing. Attendance at one's local parish church was never again required.
As of 1665, no nonconformist minister, i.e. one who endeavored any alteration of government either in church or state, was allowed to live or visit within five miles of any corporate town or any place where he had acted as minister or else forfeit 40 pounds. Persons not frequenting the established church were not allowed to teach in any public or private school or else forfeit 40 pounds.
By statute of 1670, anyone at least sixteen years old who is present at any assembly, conventile [private meeting of religious dissidents to pray and expound scripture], or meeting under pretence of any exercise of religion in other manner than according to the established Church of England at which there are at least five persons present shall be fined 5s. for the first offense and 10s. for the second offense. (This does not include members of the same household meeting in their home.) Anyone who preaches or teaches at such a meeting shall pay 20 pounds for the first offense, and 40 pounds for further offenses. The householder who permits such a meeting shall pay 20 pounds. A justice or Justice of the Peace or chief magistrate may break open doors and enter by force any house or other place where they have been informed of any such meeting and take persons there into custody for prosecution. This is to discourage the growing of dangerous seditious persons under pretence of tender consciences.
Religious nonconformity continued especially among the humble people. The penal statutes caused hundreds of these nonconformists to be put in gaol. From time to time, the king would release them and suspend these laws. Sometimes, Charles II allowed dissenters to meet in private for worship if they got a license from him. Religious gatherings grew in numbers, size, and geographical extent. Dissenters were then allowed by statute to meet behind locked or barred doors. But they had to pay tithes and could be prosecuted in the ecclesiastical courts for not doing so. By statute, all congregations and assemblies for religious worship had to register with the local bishop or archbishop. Disturbers of religious worship were required to find two sureties for the amount of 50 pounds.
Attendance at the established Church of England was never again required. Nor was preaching or lecturing constrained. Instead, a statute was passed in 1677 that: Every person shall be pious and exercise religion publicly and privately on Sunday. No work may be done or goods sold or else forfeit 5s. or the goods respectively. No one may travel or else forfeit 5-20s. In a further statute of 1688, because some ease to scrupulous consciences in the exercise of religion may be an effectual means to unite Protestant subjects in interest and affection, Protestant nonconformists who took the oaths (or declaration in the case of Quakers) and a declaration that they were not Catholic, did not adore the Virgin Mary or any saint, and did not go to mass were declared not liable for punishment in any ecclesiastical court by reason of their nonconformity to the Church of England, except Protestant dissenters meeting behind locked doors. But payment of tithes and performance of parish duties were still obligatory. Non-conformist preachers had to subscribe to the tenets of belief listed in the first eighteen Articles of Religion, but were exempted from the articles on expounding inconsistencies in scripture, the traditions of the church, homilies, and consecration of bishops and ministers of the Elizabethan statute and the statute on uniformity of prayers and sacraments of Charles II.
Quakers were active in the countryside. They were about one tenth of the population and did not believe in a state church. There were some Quakers schools and some Quaker workhouses to give work to the poor. For the reason that they met together in large numbers to the great endangering of public peace and safety and to the terror of the people, and because they had secret communications and separated themselves from the rest of the people and from the usual places of worship, a statute was passed in 1662, that any Quakers who assembled to the number of five or more under the pretense of unauthorized religious worship and any person maintaining that taking an oath before a magistrate was unlawful and contrary to the word of God or refusing to take a required oath was to forfeit 5 pounds for the first offense or be imprisoned for 3 months if he couldn't pay. For the second offense, the penalty was 10 pounds or imprisonment for 6 months with hard labor. The third offense required abjuring the realm or being transported to a plantation of the king beyond the seas. The policy of Charles II was to allow Quakers to meet undisturbed, to keep their hats on before magistrates, and to not come to the parish church. But this policy was only partially adopted in the country. From 1689, by statute, the Quakers were allowed to affirm or declare instead of making the customary oath.
Many Presbyterians became Unitarians, who rejected the trinity of "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" and doubted the divinity of Jesus, but accepted revelation. This statute was then passed in 1697: Any person having been educated in or having at any time made profession of the Christian religion who, by writing, printing, teaching, or advised speaking, denies the Holy trinity, asserts that there is more than one god, or that the Bible is not of divine authority, shall be disabled for any ecclesiastical, civil, or military office. The penalty for a second offense is being disabled from suing or pleading any action in any court, being guardian of any child, or executor or administrator of any estate, or receiving any legacy or deed of gift and imprisonment for three years without bail or mainprize.
Catholicism was always disfavored. Catholic priests were executed with little evidence. At times, Charles commuted the death penalty for them to banishment. Sometimes there were effigies of the pope burned in the streets. Such burnings were later banned. At times Charles allowed Catholics to attend mass.