Rightful Head of England: Pope vs. King
By Rosanne E. Lortz We thought that the clergy of our realm had been our subjects wholly, but now we have well perceived that they be but half our subjects, yea, and scarce our subjects: for all the prelates at their consecration make an oath to the Pope, clean contrary to the oath that they make to us, so that they seem to be his subjects, and not ours. On May 11, 1532, King Henry VIII uttered this complaint to Parliament, that the clergy of the realm cared more for the Pope’s commands than they did for his own. Any Tudor-phile can tell you what happened next. Two years later Henry issued the Act of Supremacy, severing the connection with Rome and making himself “the only supreme head on earth of the Church in England.” But how did the Church of England become so reliant on the Church of Rome in the first place? How did the Pope, the bishop of the far-away city of Rome, gain authority over what happened in the British Isles? Augustine of Canterbury The story of the Pope’s involvement ...