The first
Act of Supremacy granted King
Henry VIII of England Royal Supremacy which is still the legal authority of the
Sovereign of the
United Kingdom. Royal Supremacy is specifically used to describe the legal
sovereignty of the civil laws over the
laws of the
Church in
England.
First Act of Supremacy 1534
The Act of Supremacy November 1534 (
26 Hen. 8, c. 1) was an Act of the
Parliament of England under
King Henry VIII declaring that he was 'the only supreme head on earth of the Church in England' and that the
English crown shall enjoy "all honours, dignities, preeminences, jurisdictions, privileges, authorities, immunities, profits, and commodities to the said dignity.". By the wording of the Act, it was made clear that Parliament was not granting the King the title (thereby suggesting that they had the right to later withdraw them) but rather it was stated as a recognised fact.
Henry was declared "Defender of the Faith" (
Fidei Defensor) in 1521 by
Pope Leo X for his pamphlet accusing
Martin Luther of
heresy.
Parliament later conferred this title upon Henry in 1544. The 1534 Act made official the
English Reformation that had been brewing since 1527. The main purpose of this act was so that Henry could get an
annulment of his marriage to
Catherine of Aragon, because Henry had fallen in love with
Anne Boleyn, however
Pope Clement VII still refused to grant the annulment, due to the familial relations Catherine had with the Holy Roman Emperor at the time. The
Treasons Act was later issued saying that to disavow the Act of Supremacy and to deprive the King of his "dignity, title, or name" was to be considered
treason.
This act was repealed in 1554 by king Henry's oldest daughter, Queen
Mary I.
Second Act of Supremacy 1558
Henry's Act of Supremacy was repealed (1554) in the reign of his staunchly Catholic daughter,
Mary I. Equally unsurprisingly, it was reinstated by Mary's Protestant half-sister,
Elizabeth I, when she ascended the throne. Elizabeth declared herself Supreme Governor of the
Church of England, and instituted an
Oath of Supremacy, requiring anyone taking public or church office to swear allegiance to the monarch as head of the Church and state. Anyone refusing to take the Oath could be charged with treason." The use of the term
Supreme Governor as opposed to
Supreme Head pacified Catholics and those Protestants concerned about a female leader of the
Church of England. Elizabeth, who was a
politique, did not prosecute layman
nonconformists, or those who did not follow the established rules of the
Church of England unless their actions directly undermined the authority of the English monarch, as was the case in the
vestments controversy.
The consolidation of church and state under Royal Supremacy, as established by the Tudors, instigated political and religious strife in the succeeding centuries. This strife, along with similar struggles in Europe, is one reason there is a constitutional separation of church and state in many jurisdictions now. In the
United Kingdom, however, the Crown, through the government, still retains a significant involvement in the established
Church of England.
See also
