Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 by Various
page 35 of 62 (56%)
page 35 of 62 (56%)
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the Garter, he is told to take the crimson robe, and being therewith
defended, to be bold to fight and shed his blood for Christ's faith, the liberties of the Church, and the defence of the oppressed. In this sense, the sovereign and every knight became a sworn defender of the faith. Can this duty have come to be popularly attributed as part of the royal style and title? The Bull of Leo X., which confers the title on Henry VIII. personally, does not make it inheritable by his successors, so that none but that king himself could claim the honour. The Bull granted two years afterwards by Clement VII. merely confirms the grant of Pope Leo to the king himself. It was given, as we know, for his assertion of doctrines of the Church of Rome; yet he retained it after his separation from the Roman Catholic communion, and after it had been formally revoked and withdrawn by Pope Paul III. in the twenty-seventh year of Henry VIII., upon the king's apostacy in turning suppressor of religious houses. In 1543, the Reformation legislature and the Anti-papal king, without condescending to notice any Papal Bulls, assumed to treat the title that the Pope had given and taken away as a subject of Parliamentary gift, and annexed it for ever to the English crown by the statute 35 Hen. VIII. c. 3., from which I make the following extract, as its language bears upon the question: "Where our most dread, &c., lord the king, hath heretofore been, and is justly, lawfully, and notoriously knowen, named, published, and declared to be King of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and the Church of England and also of Ireland, in earth supreme head; and hath justly and lawfully used the title and name thereof as to his Grace appertaineth. Be it enacted, &c., that all and singular his Graces' subject, &c., shall from henceforth accept and take the same his Majesty's style ... viz., in the English tongue by these |
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