Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Royal Supremacy: With Reference to Convocation, the Court of Appeal, and the Appointment of Bishops, Historically Examined in a Letter to the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M. P
The tendency of the present day is to put the Royal Supremacy as much as possible out of sight, and to speak as though the Church of England were still an independent society. But the fact remains, and is not so easily disposed of. We may ignore the supremacy, or we may qualify it to mean nothing at all; or we may prove to demonstration what are the just limits within which the civil power may act in ecclesiastical affairs. And we may proceed, from such reasoning, to sketch out our theories of Church organization and reform, as though no material change had passed over the Catholic Church in this country, since the Mission of S. Augustine.
But, no sooner is an attempt made to carry these conclusions into effect, than we are confronted with the solid fact of the Crown's absolute supremacy in Church government. It has not passed away into the limbo of bygone events: it is not a mere date in history. On the contrary, it is a principle of living and continuous force in the Church of this country, and one which is fundamental: it is the characteristic doctrine of the English Reformation. The supremacy of the Crown bears the same relation to the Anglican position, that the authority which it displaced, the supremacy of the Pope, occupies in the Roman controversy; it is the key to the whole question.
This, every student of history cannot help remarking, as he traces the course of ecclesiastical affairs in England through the mediaeval age, to their issue under Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth.
He will observe, from the reign of Alfred to the death of Wolsey, the Catholic Church preserving, with some vicissitudes, a generally uniform and consistent course in its relations to the Crown and to the see of Rome; in its self-administrative powers, in the independent jurisdiction of its own courts.
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