Supremacy, Acts of, were two steps in the development of the Christian church in England away from papal control and toward the establishment of the Church of England. They were passed by Parliament in 1534 and 1559.
The Act of Supremacy of 1534 declared King Henry VIII “the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England.” It was the last of several acts passed after 1529 to break the ties that linked the church in England with the Roman Catholic Church. The pope had refused to allow Henry to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon. In 1533, Henry married Anne Boleyn secretly, and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer declared Henry’s marriage to Catherine to be annulled (canceled). The pope excommunicated Henry. Afterward, Henry was able to make use of widespread strong feeling against the church’s abuses of its power to make himself head of the church, and to declare his marriage to Anne valid. By the act, Henry’s injunctions became binding on the clergy. The king, through Parliament, could reform heresies and define the faith.
The Act of Supremacy of 1559, passed in the first Parliament of Queen Elizabeth I, repealed laws that Queen Mary I had passed to undo the reforms of Henry VIII. In 1554, during Mary’s reign, both houses of Parliament had passed a petition asking for England to be received back into the Roman Catholic Church. By the second Act of Supremacy, Elizabeth became “the only supreme governor of this realm, as well in all spiritual and ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal.” All clergy and officials had to take an oath to Elizabeth as their ruler in both church and state affairs.
