Exclusion Bill
The Exclusion Bill was a bill that plunged England into deep political crisis from 1678 to 1681 . The intention of the bill was to exclude the brother of King Charles II (who later became King James II ) from the line of succession because he was a Roman Catholic . The Court Party (Party of the Court, the later Tories ) was against expulsion, while the Country Party (Party of the Country, the later Whigs ) supported expulsion.
In 1670 Jacob had publicly declared that he was a Roman Catholic. Jacob's secretary Edward Coleman was described in 1678 by the corrupt Protestant cleric Titus Oates as the mastermind of a (fictitious) " papist conspiracy ", which supposedly had the aim of infiltrating the state and overthrowing Charles II. Members of the Protestant upper class noted that in France a Catholic ruled in an absolutist way. A movement was formed to prevent this scenario in England. Many feared that Jacob after his accession to the throne (Karl had no legitimate sons entitled to inherit) would usurp all power in the state.
The event that finally triggered the crisis was the unproven accusation that Chancellor of the Exchequer Thomas Osborne, Lord Danby , had accepted large sums of money from King Louis XIV of France to buy the neutrality of Charles's government. King Karl dissolved the parliament, but the newly elected parliament, which met in March 1679, was even more hostile towards him and his minister. Osborne was arrested and transferred to the Tower of London .
On May 15, 1679, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, presented a bill to the House of Commons to exclude Jacob from the line of succession. A minority even supported Charles' illegitimate (but Protestant) heir, James Scott . From the supporters of the royal house, then called Abhorrers ( Abhorrers ), the Tories later formed. The petitioners who advocated the bill later became the Whigs. As it became more and more likely that the law could be passed, Karl applied his sovereignty and dissolved parliament. Subsequent parliaments also tried to get the law through, but were also dissolved.
Shaftesbury's party, the Whigs, sparked a mass movement across the country, mainly by fueling fear of a "papist conspiracy". Every November, on the anniversary of Elizabeth I's accession to the throne , she organized large demonstrations in London, each time a figure of the Pope was burned. But the Tories, who sided with the king, also spread their propaganda. They reminded the people of the reign of terror and distress during the Commonwealth . In addition, the royal family described the Whigs as subversives and disguised nonconformists . The mass movement lost its influence in 1681 and the bill was eventually dropped.