This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Act of Supremacy is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
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.
Contents |
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."1
The Nation Master Encyclopedia explains that Henry was declared "Defender of the Faith" (Fidei Defensor) for his pamphlet accusing Martin Luther of heresy, and was now confirmed as head of the Church in England through this legislation. "This made official the English Reformation that had been brewing since 1527, and caused a long-lasting distrust between England and the Roman Catholic Church".citation needed The main purpose of this act was so that Henry could get an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, but Pope Clement VII still refused to grant the annulment. 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.2
This act was repealed in 1554 by Henry's daughter, Queen Mary I.citation needed
Second Act of Supremacy 1559
"Henry's Act of Supremacy was repealed (1554) in the reign of his staunchly Catholic daughter, Mary I. Equally unsurprisingly, it was reinstated by Mary's Protestant half-sister, Elizabeth I, when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." 3 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. However, 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.
As established by the Tudors, the consolidation of church and state under Royal Supremacy instigated political and religious strife in the succeeding centuries. This strife, along with similar struggles in Europe, was one reason why in many jurisdictions there is now a constitutional separation of church and state. In the United Kingdom, however, the Crown, through the government, still retains a significant involvement in the established Church of England.
See also
- Supreme Governor of the Church of England
- Religion in the United Kingdom
- State religion
- Separation of church and state
Notes
- ^ "Henry VIII's Act of Supremacy (1534)- original text" English History. David Ross and Britain Express
- ^ "Treason Act, 1534" English Reformation Sources. Julie P. McFerran, 2003-2004
- ^ 1
THE ACT OF SUPREMACY (1559). [1]
External links
- Original text of the 1534 Act of Supremacy.
- Official text of the Act of Supremacy 1558 as amended and in force today within the United Kingdom, from the UK Statute Law Database
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 12 December 2008, at 00:16.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Act of Supremacy".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.