The constant repetition of these ordinances proves that they were never enforced save by occasional fits of zeal; the Catholics went away; a week later they returned; no doubt the officers were bribed to shut their eyes. Yet the system was most exasperating; for a Catholic to be compelled to attend a Protestant service was almost as bad as for a Mohammedan to be compelled to eat pig; the Catholic rule about attending heretical services is never relaxed; while a zealous churchwarden, armed with blank warrants, which he could fill up as he pleased in order to arrest and to fine, might make life intolerable. A good many young Catholics went abroad for education, and presently found it expedient to stay there. The Nonconformists, for their part, had no intention of submitting meekly. There were riots and tumults in the City. In 1681 the Middlesex magistrates endeavoured to put in execution the Act of Charles II.:—
“Which enacts, that all those who preached in conventicles or meetings, contrary to the statutes of the realm, shall not come within five miles of a corporation; that no person shall teach in any school under the penalty of £40, unless he attend the established church. And that of the 20th year of the same reign, which ordains, that if any person above sixteen years of age attended a religious assembly in a house where more than five others, exclusive of the household, were present, except the rites were according to the established church, any person preaching there should forfeit a certain sum.”
It was presently reported, to the blind terror and indignation of the zealous, that in certain houses lately erected Catholics had opened schools, and had attracted many pupils and numbers of people, their parents and relations. It was therefore enacted that those persons who, having licences for keeping houses of entertainment, did not attend church and, instead, attended any kind of conventicle, should lose their licence, and—a very serious blow against Catholics and Nonconformists—money should not be given to the poor unless they attended church. The Privy Council, having a list of Catholic tradesmen in St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, St. Giles’s, and St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, set an example to the City by ordering the Justices of the Peace to proceed against them according to law.
The history of Nonconformity in London has been treated in the book of the Eighteenth Century. The following, however, is a list of conventicles and preachers in the year 1680:—
“Holborn, Short’s Gardens, Case, Presbyterian Minister.
Chequer Yard, Dowgate Hill, Watson, Presbyterian, 300.
Cutler’s Hall, Cole, Presbyterian, 400.
Hand Alley, Bishopsgate Street, Vincent the Elder, 800.
Glovers’ Hall, Beech Lane, Cripplegate, Fifth Monarchy Meeting.
Devonshire House, Bishopsgate, Harcostell, Anabaptist.