titie en acted tion, yet nevertheless, for corroboration and confirmation CHAP thereof, and for increase of virtue in Christ's religion within IV this realm of England, and to repress and extirp all errours, A.D. 1534 heresies, and other enormities and abuses heretofore used in the same; be it enacted, by authority of this present parliament, that the King our Sovereign Lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted, and The new reputed the only Supreme Head in earth of the Church of England, called Anglicana Ecclesia, and shall have and enjoy annexed and united to the imperial crown of this realm, as well the title and style thereof as all the honours, dignities, pre-eminences, jurisdictions, authorities, immunities, profits, and commodities, to the said dignity belonging and appertaining; and that our said Sovereign Lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall have full power and authority to visit, repress, redress, reform, order, correct, restrain, and amend all such errours, heresies, abuses, contempts, and enormities, whatsoever they be, which by any manner of spiritual authority or jurisdiction ought or may lawfully be reformed-most to the pleasure of Almighty God, the increase of virtue in Christ's religion, and for the conservation of the peace, unity, and tranquillity of this realm-any usage, custom, foreign laws, foreign authority, prescription, or any other thing or things to the contrary hereof notwithstanding." mentary lishing new treasons The enormous power thus given to the King was Supplenot, however, sufficient to gratify his lust of tyranny; Act estab and a second Act [26 Hen. VIII. cap. 13] was passed by Parliament immediately afterwards, which made it high treason to "imagine, invent, practise, or attempt any bodily harm to be done or committed to the King's most royal person, the Queen's, or their heirs-apparent, or to deprive them or any of them of the dignity, title, or name of their royal estates, . . and that all such persons, their aiders, counsellors, concertors, or abettors, being thereof lawfully con 1 It will be observed that the tum per Christi legem licet" is important limitation clause "quan- dishonestly ignored. IV of Com mons 232 TYRANNICAL ENFORCEMENT OF THESE ACTS CHAP vict, according to the laws and customs of the realm, 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 Supremacy this chapter. enactment 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) 66 was but declaratory of the ancient law of the realm." The 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 Deo et sub lege, quia lex facit regem." 4 "Dei vicarius tam in spiritualibus quam in temporalibus."5 stitutional of the su Premacy 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 Statute actment 3. The Act of Supremacy 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. Better en- 4. The corrective jurisdiction of the Crown was under Q. re-established by Queen Elizabeth with a definite Elizabeth form of limitation which brought it into agreement The oath of supre. macy 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),— "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 CHAP 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. IV terpreta • premacy 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 tive not a 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 • 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 legislative |