Anti-Catholicism Catholics, and his replacement by a Dutch Protestant. For decades the Stuarts were supported by France in plots to invade and conquer Britain, and anti-Catholicism persisted. The Gordon Riots of 1780 were a violent anti-Catholic protest in London against the Papists Act of 1778, which was intended to reduce official discrimination against British Catholics. Lord George Gordon, head of the Protestant Association warned that the law would enable Catholics in the British Army to become a dangerous threat. The protest evolved into riots and widespread looting. Local magistrates were afraid of reprisals and did not issue the riot act. There
Bath, Maine anti-Catholic riot of 1854 Bath, Maine anti-Catholic riot of 1854 The anti-Catholic riot that occurred in Bath on July 6, 1854 was one of a number that took place in coastal Maine in the 1850s, including the tarring and feathering of a Catholic priest, Father John Bapst in 1854 in the town of Ellsworth. The first and most violent anti-Catholic riot in Maine took place in Bangor, Maine in 1834. The resurgence of violence in the 1850s was associated with the rise of the Know-Nothing Party and the passage of the Maine law, America's first statewide prohibition ordinance. The Bath mob was gathered and