of Com

mons

232 TYRANNICAL ENFORCEMENT OF THESE ACTS

CHAP vict, according to the laws and customs of the realm, IV shall be adjudged traitors, and that every such offence A.D. 1534 in any of the premises, shall be adjudged high treason." Notwithstanding all the abject servility Disgrace with which the House of Commons laid itself at the ful servility of House feet of Henry VIII., it certainly does excite surprise that such an Act could be allowed to pass : and it can scarcely be explained in any other way than by supposing Cromwell to have gained over a large party to vote as the King wished, by disclosing his shrewd plans for enriching the lay courtiers at the expense of the clergy. It disgraced the Statute Book only until the unscrupulous tyranny of Henry's reign had passed away, and was repealed immediately on the accession of his son, by 1 Edw. VI. cap. 12. While it stood there, many were dragged under its operation in the most unjust manner; and the land was deluged with the blood of good men who thought they would be doing dishonour to the true Head of the Church if they recognised the extravagant interpretations which were put upon the King's claim. For a time it formed the one great article of Henry's creed, and it was not difficult for him to find sordid men like Cromwell who were willing to assist him in compelling every one to bow down before the idol that had been set up, or else to die a death not less cruel than that of the Babylonian furnace.

Results

of transactions re

The effect of all the transactions relating to the royal supremacy, and culminating in the highly lating to penal statute by which the Act of Supremacy was of Royal enforced, may be stated in a few words before closing this chapter.

Supremacy

IV

right of

lish Crown

1. The Convocations of both provinces had given CHAP synodal recognition to a principle always practically recognised in England, though much encroached An ancient upon by the usurped jurisdiction of the Popes. Sir the EngEdward Coke, speaking of the acts of Henry VIII., says that "all ecclesiastical jurisdiction, though usurped, was now restored to the Crown:"2 Blackstone, that the Crown was "restored to its supremacy over spiritual men and causes,' " and that "the Statute 25 Hen. VIII." (that of appeals) declaratory of the ancient law of the realm." ancient lawyer, Bracton, to whom all deference was paid until Lord Coke's more modern authority superseded him, goes so far as to say, even in the thirteenth century, that "Rex est vicarius et minister Dei in terra: omnis quidem sub eo est, et ipse sub nullo, nisi tantum sub Deo." sub lege, quia lex facit regem."

66

was but
The

"Sub Deo et

"Dei vicarius

stitutional

of the su

premacy

tam in spiritualibus quam in temporalibus." 2. But although the royal supremacy is part of The conthe sovereign's prerogative it is no more without limitations limitation than other parts of the prerogative. Even by the Statute 26 Hen. VIII. cap. 1, it is only made a corrective jurisdiction, and nothing is said about the directive jurisdiction by which the ordinary functions of the Church, when unaffected by offence or dispute, are discharged. Henry VIII., however, cast aside all such limitations whenever it suited him to do so, and especially by the unprecedented appoint

5 Book i. ch. 8. The Act 33 Edw. III. declares that the spiritual jurisdiction of kings is derived from a priestly character given to them by their unction at corona

CHAP ment of a lay "vicegerent," who was practically a lay Pope of England.

IV

Repeal of
Henry
VIII.
Statute

Better enactment

Elizabeth

3. The Act of Suprem cy remained in force only until 1553, being repealed by 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, cap. 8, and not revived by Queen Elizabeth, who, indeed, had a personal dislike to even a modified form of the title which it conferred on the sovereign.

4. The corrective jurisdiction of the Crown was under Q. re-established by Queen Elizabeth with a definite form of limitation which brought it into agreement with the ancient common law, and left no such loophole open for extreme tyranny as was provided by the undefined powers enumerated in the Act of Supremacy. And this is the more conspicuous since some of the wording of that Act is reproduced in the new Statute. The later Act is 1 Elizabeth, cap. 1, which provides (in section 17),—

The oath

of supre. macy

"That such jurisdictions, privileges, superiorities, and preeminences, spiritual and ecclesiastical, as by any spiritual or ecclesiastical power or authority hath heretofore been or may lawfully be exercised or used for the visitation of the ecclesiastical state and persons, and for reformation, order, and correction of the same, and of all manner of errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, offences, contempts, and enormities, shall for ever, by authority of this present Parliament, be united and annexed to the imperial crown of this realm."

The nineteenth section of the same Act provided also an oath of supremacy, to be taken by all ecclesiastical persons, which begins with the following clause :

"I, A. B., do utterly testify and declare in my conscience that the Queen's Highness is the only supreme governor of this realm, and of all other her Highness's dominions and

countries, as well in all spiritual and ecclesiastical things or causes, as temporal.”

But this clause was struck out by 1 William and Mary, cap. 8, and the repudiation of the supremacy of the Pope was alone retained.

6

CHAP
IV

terpreta

Thus it will be seen that the claims subsequently Later inmade by the Crown were verbally of a much more tion of the limited character than those made by Henry VIII., Royal Suwhile the title "Supreme Head of the Church of England" was entirely dropped after being used for about a quarter of a century. But the limitation in practice was far greater. Henry VIII. gave commissions to the bishops, and made his Vicegerent Cromwell the head of the Convocation of Canterbury, but no such outrages upon the Church were perpetrated by Elizabeth or any subsequent sovereigns of England. Henry's later view of the royal supremacy appears to have been that it contained within itself all the rights which had been claimed for the papal supremacy; but such a view was never recognised by any statute. Subsequent prac- An execu tice, as well as law, entirely restricts it to the legislative restoration of ancient regal jurisdiction; that right authority by which the sovereign is the supreme administrator of the law over ecclesiastical as well as over secular persons. The "constitutions and canons ecclesiastical" of 1603 were decreed and ordained by the Convocation of Canterbury, and the Crown claimed

6 The titles of the Sovereign are prefixed to the Statutes in the Rolls of Parliament. This title appears among the rest from the year 1534 to the year 1553, and is never found there after that date. It appears once afterwards in the body of an Act of Parlia

ment [2 & 3 Anne, cap. 11], the
Queen Anne's Bounty Act, and
was probably copied in thought-
lessly from the Acts of Henry
VIII., which would need to be
frequently referred to in drafting
the act in question.

tive not a

CHAP

IV

Assent to and promulgation of canons of A. D.

1603

no further power respecting them than that of assent and execution, leaving the right of legislation entirely in the hands of the clergy."

'We," say the letters patent which publish these canons, of our princely inclination and royal care for the maintenance of the present estate and government of the Church of England, by the laws of this our realm now settled and established, having diligently, with great contentment and comfort, read and considered of all these their said canons, orders, ordinances, and constitutions, agreed upon, as is before expressed; and finding the same such as we are persuaded will be very profitable, not only to our clergy, but to the whole. Church of this our kingdom, and to all the true members of it, if they be well observed; have therefore for us, our heirs, and lawful successors, of our especial grace, certain knowledge, and mere motion, given, and by these presents do give our royal assent, according to the form of the said Statute or Act of Parliament aforesaid, to all and every of the said canons, orders, ordinances, and constitutions, and to all and every thing in them contained, as they are before written.

that assent is given. Again the Royal assent is given to canons in the gross, to bills one by one, which well illustrates the difference between the control in the one case and the actuating and moving power in the other. But the language of these instruments respectively affords the clearest and the highest proof. In the Canons (Canon 1) we find the words 'We decree and ordain,' that is we the members of the two houses of Convocation. But in our laws, 'Be it enacted by the King's most excellent majesty, with the advice and consent of the lords, spiritual and temporal, and commons,'" &c., &c. [Gladstone on the Royal Supremacy, p. 31.]

825 Henry VIII. 19, the "Act of Appeals."