The Act of Supremacy 1534

 

490 years ago on November 3rd 1534 the legal measure to create the Royal Supremacy in England completed its Parliamentary stages and on December 18th it received the Royal Assent from King Henry VIII and became an Act of Parliament.

Wikipedia gives a summary of the Act, and of the associated Treason Act at Acts of Supremacy

This was the logical and virtually inevitable legislative conclusion to the Ecclesiastical Appeals Act 1532 and of the Appointment of Bishops Act 1533 which was passed and received Royal Assent earlier in 1534. 

Constitutionally the English Reformation had been achieved and legally set in stone.

It is not unreasonable to see these events as the ending of mediaeval England and much more so than, for example, the battle of Bosworth in 1485 or even the summoning of the Reformation Parliament in 1529. The spiritual and temporal partnership of church and Crown over the realm which endured since the tenth century was now merged into a single Constitutional monopoly on behalf of the Monarchy.

During this process Pope Clement VII, much of whose troubled pontificate had been taken up with the “King’s Great Matter”, had died on September 25th and he had been successful on October 13th by Pope Paul III, an outwardly improbable but, as it turned out, very significant reformer, just three weeks before the legislative process was completed at Westminster. 

A significant change can be seen during the process of the passage of these Acts. Whereas  that in Restraint of Appeals and that regulating appointments to Bishoprics had had as their ultimate sanction the 1393 legislation in respect of Praemunire with its its massive financial penalties, the Act of Supremacy and the Treason Act that set out that to deny it was to commit High Treason - for individuals the risks of opposition were made significantly more threatening.

Praemunire had been a marker along the historical road that had included the rejection in the 1420s of Papal attempts to repeal it and the Provisions legislation of the fourteenth century, and long before that the ructions over episcopal investiture in the late eleventh and early twelfth century, and, of course, the dramatic life and death of St Thomas of Canterbury - “Bishop Becket” or the “traitor Becket” as far as King Henry and Mr Secretary Cromwell were concerned.

That there was a recognisable Ecclesia Anglicana long before 1534 is clear, but very much as part of the Catholic Church. Equally it is clear that English Kings exercised a not inconsiderable position of influence within the public life of that Ecclesia and of appointments to the hierarchy, but as patrons and partners not as the ultimate arbiter.

A new era has dawned. We still live with its consequences, unimaginable as they would surely be to everyone in the England or Europe of 1534.