REGIUM DONUM or ROYAL GIFT, an annual grant f or merly made from the public funds to Presbyterian and other Nonconformist ministers in Great Britain and Ireland. In 1690 William III. made a grant of £1,200 a year to the Presbyterian ministers in Ireland as a reward for their services during his struggle with James II. Owing to the opposition of the Irish House of Lords the money was not paid in 1711 and some sub sequent years, but it was revived in 1715 by George I., who in creased the amount to £2,000 a year. Further additions were made in 1784 and in 1792, and in 1868 the sum granted to the Irish Presbyterian ministers was 445,000. The Regium Donum was withdrawn by the act of 1869 which disestablished the Irish church. Provision was made, however, for existing interests therein, and many Presbyterian ministers commuted these on the same terms as the clergy of the church of Ireland.
In England the Regium Donum proper dates from 1721, when Dr. Edmund Calamy (1671-1732) received isoo from the royal
bounty "for the use and behalf of the poor widows of dissenting ministers." Afterwards this sum was increased to ii,000 and was made an annual payment "for assisting either ministers or their widows," and later it amounted to £1,695 per annum. It was given to distributors who represented the three denomina tions, Presbyterians, Baptists and Independents, enjoying the grant. Among the Nonconformists themselves, however, or at least among the Baptists and the Independents, there was some objection to this form of state aid, and it was withdrawn in 1857.
See J. Stoughton, History of Religion in England (i9m) ; J. S. Reid, History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (Belfast, 1867) ; and E. Calamy, Historical Account of my own Life, edited by J. T. Rutt (1829-3o).