| Administrative History | Successive Acts obliged office holders to swear allegiance to the Crown, to abjure allegiance to the pretender James III (or his descendants), to abjure the doctrine that rulers excommunicated by the Pope might be deposed or murdered by their subjects declaring that no foreign person should have any jurisdiction within the realm. The Act of 9 Geo I c24 (1722) ordered all persons aged 18 or more to take the oath of allegiance but this does not appear to have taken full effect. |