e pope to an English supremacy were unjust; and that it was
good and wise to resist those claims. If this be allowed, those laws
will not be found to deserve the reproach of tyranny. We shall see in
them but the natural resource of a vigorous government placed in
circumstances of extreme peril. The Romanism of the present day is a
harmless opinion, no more productive of evil than any other
superstition, and without tendency, or shadow of tendency, to impair the
allegiance of those who profess it. But we must not confound a phantom
with a substance; or gather from modern experience the temper of a time
when words implied realities, when Catholics really believed that they
owed no allegiance to an heretical sovereign, and that the first duty of
their lives was to a foreign potentate. This perilous doctrine was
waning, indeed, but it was not dead. By many it was actively professed;
and among those by whom it was denied there were few except the
Protestants whom it did not in some degree embarrass and perplex.

[Sidenote: Parliament meets, November 3.]

[Sidenote: The king is declared supreme Head of the Church.]

The government, therefore, in the close of 1534, having clear evidence
before them of intended treason, determined to put it down with a high
hand; and with this purpose parliament met again on the 3d of November.
The first act of the session was to give the sanction of the legislature
to the title which had been conceded by convocation, and to declare the
king supreme Head of the Church of England. As affirmed by the
legislature, this designation meant something more than when it was
granted three years previously by the clergy. It then implied that the
spiritual body were no longer to be an _imperium in imperio_ within the
realm, but should hold their powers subordinate to the crown. It was now
an assertion of independence of foreign jurisdiction; it was the
complement of the Act of Appeals, rounding off into completeness the
constitution in Church and State of the English nation. The act is
short, and being of so great importance, I insert it entire.

[Sidenote: Act of Supremacy.]

"Albeit," it runs, "the King's Majesty justly and rightfully is and
ought to be the supreme Head of the Church of England, and so is
recognised by the clergy of this realm in their convocation, yet
nevertheless, for corroboration and confirmation thereof, and for
increase of virtue in Christ's religion within this realm of Englan