SUPREMACY, ROYAL. The term supremacy is, in politics, chiefly used with regard to authority in matters ecclesiastical. From the time of pope Gelasius (494 A.D.) to the reformation, the pope exercised a very extensive authority, judicial, legislative, and executive, over all the churches of western Europe, somewhat undefined in its limits, varying in different countries and at different periods; which continues to be more or less recognized in all countries whose inhabitants are in communion with the church of Rome. At the English reformation, the papal supremacy was abolished, and act 26 Henry VIII. c. 1, declared the king and his successors to be the "only supreme head on earth of the church of England." A. curious document was at the same time drawn up by the government, in which, to avoid misconception, it was explained that the recogni tion of this headship of the church implies only that the king should have such power as of right appertaineth to a king by the law of God, and that he should not take any spiritual power from spiritual ministers, .or pretend to "take any power from i the suc cessors of the apostles that was given them by God." In 1535, the same year in which this act was passed, John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, sir Thomas More, and others, were beheaded for denying the king's supremacy; and in 1578, John Nelson, a priest, and Sherwodd, a young layman, suffered the punishment of death for the same offense.
The assumption by Henry VIIL of the title of "head of the church," notwithstanding the explanation alluded to, was much commented on; and onthe accession of Elizabeth, it was thought prudent, while again claiming the supremacy in all causes, as well eccle siastical as civil, to keep that designation in the background. By successive statutes, the oath of supremacy was appointed to be taken by the holders of public offices along with the oath of allegiance and of abjuration, and these three oaths were consolidated into one by 21 and 22 Viet. e. 48. The subject of oaths was, however, revised by the legislature in 1868 and 1871; and a new short oath of allegiance, in which the royal supremacy in matters ecclesiastical is not in express words specified, was substituted for the oath previously imposed upon members of both houses of parliament. See ABJURATION and OATH.