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In 1673, a Test Act was passed to try to help differentiate between Anglicans and Catholics. Public officeholders were required to swear an oath of allegiance (which recognised the monarch as the head of the Church of England) and accept communion by Protestant form. The intention of the Act was to exclude Catholics from public office. James, Duke of York (Charles II\'s brother and the future James VII and II), being Catholic, was forced to surrender his public office as admiral, as he would not take the oath.
In 1678, Titus Oates, an anti-Catholic protester, swore in court that he knew of a Catholic and French plot to murder the King and his Protestant supporters and place a Catholic government in their place. Opponents of the Duke of York exaggerated the fears and many Catholics were arrested and tried. The plot was little more than an invention but, during the height of the furore concerning it, a second Test Act was passed which required all members of the Houses of Commons and Lords to swear the oath and make an anti-Catholic declaration.This time, the Duke of York was specifically exempted from the scope of the act. In Scotland, in 1681, Lauderdale\'s government imposed similar legislation but, on this occasion, not in regard to Anglicanism but in regard to the 1560 Presbyterian Settlement.
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