the subsidies than about the change of religion, and as Louis XIV.
preferred that the religious question should not be raised till the
war against Holland had been completed, very little, if anything, was
done, except to publish a Declaration of Indulgence (1672) in which
Charles by virtue of his "supreme power in ecclesiastical matters"
suspended "all manner of penal laws against whatsoever sort of
Nonconformists and Recusants." By this document liberty of public
worship was granted to Dissenters, while Catholics were allowed to
meet for religious service only in private houses.

A strong Protestant feeling had been aroused in the country by the
rumour of the conversion of the Duke of York, by the certainty that
his first wife, the daughter of the Earl of Clarendon, had become a
Catholic on her death-bed, and by the suspicion of some secret
negotiations with France. When Parliament met (1673) a demand was made
that the Declaration of Indulgence should be withdrawn. The Duke of
York urged the king to stand firm in the defence of his prerogatives,
but as neither Charles nor his ally Louis XIV. wished to precipitate a
conflict with the Parliament at that particular period, the king
yielded to the storm by revoking his original declaration. Immediately
the Test Act was introduced and passed through both houses despite the
warm opposition of the Duke of York and of Lord Clifford of Chudleigh.
According to the terms of this measure it was enacted that all civil
or military officials should be obliged to take the oath of supremacy
and allegiance, to receive Communion according to the English service,
and to make a declaration "that there is not any Transubstantiation in
the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, or in the elements of bread and
wine at or after the consecration thereof by any persons whatsoever."
James, Duke of York, resigned his office of Lord High-Admiral and his
example was followed by Clifford and most of the Catholic noblemen