Catholic Church in the United Kingdom was not yet a reality, particularly in Ireland, where the Protestant Ascendancy was still in full force. The Treaty of Union of 1707, like the Act of Settlement, had stated that no "Papist" could succeed to the throne. Restrictions on the civil rights of Catholics only began to change with the passing of the Papists Act 1778, which allowed them to own property, inherit land and join the British Army, although even this measure resulted in the backlash of the Gordon Riots of 1780, showing the depth of continuing anti-Catholic feeling. After 1790, a new mood emerged as thousands of
Anti-Catholicism in the United Kingdom Scottish Reformation in 1560 abolished Catholic ecclesiastical structures and rendered Catholic practice illegal in Scotland. Today, anti-Catholicism is common in peripheral areas of the United Kingdom, mainly Scotland and Northern Ireland. Anti-Catholicism among many of the English was grounded in the fear that the pope sought to reimpose not just religio-spiritual authority over England but also secular power in alliance with arch-enemy France or Spain. In 1570, Pope Pius V sought to depose Queen Elizabeth who ruled England and Ireland with the papal bull "Regnans in Excelsis", which declared her a heretic and purported to dissolve the duty of all