Five Mile Act 1665

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The Five Mile Act or Oxford Act, is an Act of the Parliament of England (17 Charles II c. 2), passed in 1665 with the long title "An Act for restraining Non-Conformists from inhabiting in Corporations".

It was one of the English penal laws that sought to enforce conformity to the established Church of England. It forbade clergymen from living within five miles (8 km) of a parish from which they had been banned, unless they swore an oath never to resist the king, or attempt to alter the government of Church or State.

For more information, see Conventicle Act and Clarendon Code.

(The '16 Charles II c. 2' nomenclature is reference to the statute book of the numbered year of the reign of the named King in the stated chapter. This is the method used for Acts of Parliament from before 1962.)

[edit] References

Hutton, Ronald (1989). Charles II, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 228-229. ISBN 0-19-822911-9.
'Charles II, 1665: An Act for restraining Non-Conformists from inhabiting in Corporations.', Statutes of the Realm: volume 5: 1628-80 (1819), p. 575. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=47375. Date accessed: 06 March 2007.