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General Conditions in the Eighteenth Century 409 710. The English Established Church and the Protestant Sects. It will be remembered that Henry VIII had thrown off his allegiancje to the Pope and declared himself the head of the English Church. Under Queen Elizabeth a national Church had been established by Parliament. Those who loyally adhered to the Roman Catholic faith fared badly, although happily there were no such general massacres as overwhelmed the Protestants in France. There were many Protestants who did not approve of the Anglican Church as established by law. During the seven- teenth and early eighteenth centuries these Dissenters devel- oped gradually into several sects, with different views. In addition to those of which we have already spoken ( 616) was the Society of Friends, or Quakers. They owed their origin to George Fox, who began his preaching in 1647. The Friends were dis- tinguished by their simplicity of life and dress and their plain meeting-houses with scarcely a trace of the old forms of religious worship. The Quakers were the first religious sect to denounce war ever and always, and they should have the credit of beginning a movement against war which had gained much headway before the outbreak in 1914. The last of the great Protestant sects to appear was that of the Methodists. Their founder, John Wesley (d. 1791), when at Oxford, established a religious society among his fellow students. Their piety and the regularity of their habits gained for them the nickname of " Methodists." 711. Legal Intolerance in England. The Toleration Act, which was passed in 1689, permitted Dissenters to hold meetings; but "Papists and such as deny the Trinity" (namely, Unitarians) were explicitly excluded. The Dissenters as well as Catholics were not permitted to hold government offices and could not obtain degrees at the universities. Only the members of the Anglican Church could secure a church benefice. Roman Catho- lics were forbidden to enter England and legally had no rights whatever within the realm. 712. Freedom of Speech and of the Press in England. Never- theless, in spite of the ancient intolerant laws and the special