CHAPTER III.

ON THE ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY AND ACTS OF THE CIVIL POWER DURING THE REIGNS OF HENRY VIII. AND EDWARD VI.

IN considering the title of supreme head of the church of England, given to Henry VIII. by the clergy of England, we must be careful to distinguish the sense in which they allowed it to the king, from any exaggerated and unsound meaning which may have been affixed to it by courtiers or lawyers: for the former only is the church of England responsible; the latter she is not concerned with.

I. When it was proposed to the clergy of the Convocation of Canterbury, to acknowledge the king supreme head of the church and clergy of England, they absolutely refused to pass this title simply and unconditionally; and, after much discussion, the king was at last obliged to accept it with a proviso, introduced by the clergy, to the following effect: "Ecclesiæ et cleri Anglicani singularem protectorem et unicum et supremum dominum, et (quantum per Christi legem licet) etiam supremum caput, ipsius majestatem recognoscimus a."

a Burnet, Hist. Refor. vol. iii. p. 90-92, and vol. i. p. 205 ;

Collier, vol. ii. p. 62. This account is drawn up from the au

To recognize the king as supreme head of the English church, "as far as it is allowable by the law of Christ," certainly was not to admit his right to interfere with the spiritual jurisdiction of bishops, or with any of the laws, liberties, doctrines, or rights of the church, established either directly or indirectly by the law of Christ. The clergy of England were entitled to believe that they had saved all the spiritual rights of the church by this proviso; and, indeed, we learn from Burnet, that "those who adhered to their former notions," i.e. the church generally, "understood this headship to be only a temporal authority in temporal matters "." I shall not here enter on the general question of the authority of the king in ecclesiastical affairs, which will be discussed elsewhere; but it is admitted by the theologians and canonists of the Roman obedience, that Christian kings have generally a supreme power of external direction. in such matters. It has been shown by our writers

ciplinary matters for the church, of correcting abuses, limiting religious rites, enjoining silence in controversies of faith, establishing uniformity in divine service, abolishing festivals, &c.-See Report of Committee on Rom. Cath. subjects (1816), pp. 80-114. De Marca, archbishop of Paris, informs us that Molinæus, Fauchetius, Pithoeus, Hotmannus, Servinus, &c., who were all eminent writers of the Roman communion, teach "that the R. pontiff exercised no authority in Gaul before the sixth century; that in all that interval, of almost 600 years, the king alone presided over the Gallican church as head."-Proleg. ad lib. de Concord. Sacerd. et Imp. p. 71. The Answer of the Prince de Kau

that the kings of England always were the supreme political governors or heads of our national church. The most learned lawyers, Fitzherbert and Coke, affirm, that the law confirming the royal supremacy was only declaratory of the ancient laws of England'; and Bossuet himself only condemns this supremacy on the erroneous supposition that it was admitted to affect fundamentally the validity of all ecclesiastical acts, not if it were understood to relate to a merely external direction and execution ".

Now it is incredible that the clergy, in acknowledging the supremacy "as far as it is allowable by the law of Christ," could have designed to admit that all their ecclesiastical acts emanated from, or were fundamentally affected as to their validity by the royal power. They could not at once in a body have relinquished the notions which had always hitherto prevailed; and there is evidence that they did not, as we shall see in discussing the royal commissions for bishopricks. Indeed king Henry himself, in a letter to Tunstall, bishop of Durham, who thought the title of "Head" could not

nitz, chancellor of the empire, to the papal nuncio Garampi, A.D. 1781, and which is referred to as of high authority in Austria, claims for the prince a most extensive supremacy over the church. It asserts that "the reform of abuses which do not concern dogmatical or merely spiritual points... belongs exclusively to the sovereign, who alone commands, and alone has the right to command in the state. That to this authority belongs, without any exception, whatever relates to the external discipline of the clergy;" and that the power of the state 66 comprises without

with propriety be given to man, unless it were limited to temporals, seems to restrain his own ecclesiastical jurisdiction, to such things as were of a temporal or of a mixed nature, such as the assembling of convocations and confirming their laws ", the appointment of bishops and abbots, the cognizance of causes in criminal matters, &c., in all of which he was actually, as he said, "Head," and because there was no one above him here, "Supreme Head." And he adds, "We be as God's law suffereth us to be, whereunto we do and must conform ourselves'," apparently desiring that the recognition should be interpreted in no offensive or unorthodox sense. Tunstall was so far satisfied that its meaning was sound and good, that he consented, in 1535, to swear to the royal supremacy, and in 1536 wrote to cardinal Pole, justifying the king against the charge of confounding the royal and priestly offices.

The intention of the church of England in making this recognition was only to admit a general power of external control and direction in ecclesiastical affairs to the king, without relinquishing any of the ancient rights

h Thomassin observes that the Gallican convocations or assemblies of the clergy, were summoned by the king, that they exercised no acts of jurisdiction, deliberated and concluded on nothing without the king's permission; that the bishops sought in vain permission to hold synods, &c.-De Eccl. Discipl. 1. ii. c. 56, 57. In fact, during the whole of last century the French bishops were petitioning the king ineffectually to be permitted to Irold provincial synods. See also Fleury, Droit Eccl. ii. c. 2, and 25; Van Espen says a royal mi

nister was always present in the synods of Belgium, which were summoned with the royal license; and their decrees were of no force till confirmed by the king.-Jus Canon. p. i. tit. 20. c. 4. s. 3. 5. See also Bramhall, Works, 103. 112. 318, 319.

i The antiquity of this right, extending to the Norman conquest, is shown by Thomassin. Eccl. Discipl. t. ii. 1. ii. c. 34. See also Bramhall, 75. 107. 314.

316.

The letter of the king is found in the collection styled Cabala.

of the church. And if courtiers or lawyers pretended to understand it in a different sense, we are in no degree responsible for their errors.

II. It is an unfounded assertion of our adversaries of all denominations, that the papal power was transferred to the king. The royal supremacy was of a perfectly distinct nature from the papal jurisdiction. The clergy recognized the former, in the year 1531, as already existing; the papal jurisdiction continued legally to exist along with it till 1534 (of which we have a proof in the fact that Cranmer, in the judgment on king Henry's marriage, 1533, retained the title of "legate of the apostolic see.") It was then SUPPRESSED, not transferred to the king. The kings of England did not at any time pretend to succeed to the authority of the popes, but to that of their own royal predecessors.

III. In 1533 the king was given by act of parliament the power of appointing delegates to hear appeals from the metropolitan courts of England in case of "lack of justice there" (Act 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19.). But this was merely the principle of the appel comme d'abus so long practised in France, Germany, and all the other countries of the Roman obedience; and

*See Van Espen's Tractatus de Recursu ad Principem, where it is shown that the appeal to the temporal power from the unjust decrees, depositions, excommunications, &c. of the ecclesiastical authorities, is practised in every country of the Roman obedience. See also Fleury, Droit Eccl. tom. ii. c. xxiv. The appel comme d'abus has existed since the fourteenth century, and the appeals were heard by the French parliaments. It is established in Austria. Rechberger, Enchir.

VOL. I.

Jur. Eccl. Austr. The king of Sicily, from the foundation of that monarchy, has judged finally in all ecclesiastical causes in his "Tribunal of the Monarchy," and cardinal Baronius observes, that "under the name of monarchy, besides that one monarch which all the faithful have ever acknowledged as the only visible head in the church, another head is risen up, and brought into the kingdom of Sicily, for a monster and a prodigy."-See Bramhall, Works, p. 114. Yet notwithHh