[3] Under the Test Act 1673, all holders of civil and military offices and places of trust under the Crown had to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy and receive the Anglican sacrament.

Brougham wrote to Thomas Creevey on 21 April on the reason for joining Canning: "My principle is – anything to lock the door for ever on Eldon and Co."[5] On 7 June, Lord John Russell withdrew his motion for Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts but pledged to introduce it again in the next session of Parliament.

Russell argued that religious liberty was a more effective safeguard for the Church of England than exclusion and that the Bill would stop the reprehensible practice of the most sacred rite of Christianity being used for a purely secular end.

[14]The Whig peer Lord Holland wrote to Henry Fox on 10 April: It is the greatest victory over the principle of persecution & exclusion yet obtained.

Practically too the Catholick Emancipation when it comes will be a far more important measure, more immediate & more extensive in its effects – but in principle this is the greatest of them all as it explodes the real Tory doctrine that Church & State are indivisible.

[15]The supporters of the Test and Corporation Acts moved wrecking amendments to modify the Bill but these were defeated by large majorities.

[16] The Bishop of Llandaff, however, managed to get included into the declaration the words "upon the true faith of a Christian" in the face of Lord Holland's opposition.

[4] The "upon the true faith of a Christian" phrase in the new oath maintained a hurdle for Jewish candidates for political office, delaying the emancipation of the Jews in the United Kingdom until 1858.