Toleration Act

May 24, 1689

The new English parliament passed an act granting freedom of worship to Protestant dissenters, though not to Catholics or Unitarians. It was a limited measure, but it effectively ended the persecution of Baptists, Quakers, and Presbyterians. English religious uniformity, enforced since the Reformation, was quietly over, and the principle of toleration had gained its first permanent foothold in English law.