THE ROYAL SUPREMACY. By A. Wood Renton. THE recent manifesto of the English Church Union has brought into prom inence once more the question of the nature of the Royal Supremacy. There is no subject on which controversialists on both sides of English ecclesiastical life are more ready to talk and to dogmatize. There is none in regard to which it is more difficult to form a really clear and just opinion. The doc trine of the Royal Supremacy rests on a basis of historical facts and legal and consti tutional conceptions of a very complicated character. An attempt to analyze some of these will at least serve the purpose of showing how very intricate they are and how cautious wise men should be in gener alizing about them. We must start with a grasp of the fact that the so-called " establish ment " of the Church of England was not effected at the Reformation — an episode which may be roughly taken as having ranged from about the middle of the 16th century (1532) to about the middle of the 17th, when the book of Common Prayer assumed substantially its present form — but commenced with the very existence of the English state, which the preexisting Church practically called into being. We must further get a distinct notion of what the establishment of the Church of England really means. As the relationship which it signifies is a legal one, we cannot do better than define it in the language of that accom plished lawyer, the Earl of Selborne : — The establishment of the church by law con sists essentially in the incorporation of the law of the church into that of the realm, as a branch of the general law of the realm, though limited as to the causes to which, and the persons to whom it applies; in the public recognition of its courts and judges as having proper legal jurisdiction, and in the enforcement of the sentences of those courts, when duly pronounced according to law,
by the civil power. The establishment (so under stood), of the church in England, grew up gradu ally and silently, out of the relations between moral and physical power natural in an early stage of society; not as the result of any definite act, compact or conflict, but so that no one can now trace the exact steps of the process by which the voluntary recognition of moral and spiritual obligation passed into custom, and custom into law. This investiture of the law of the church with legal sanctions was obviously attended with dangers against which the civil power was entitled to take, and took, precautions. The ecclesiastical convocations might promulgate canons which were contral to the common or statute law or repug nant to the royal prerogative. To safeguard these interests the meeting of convocation was made dependent on the King's writ, and no canons or constitutions coming with in the category above indicated could be enforced. It may be convenient at this juncture to observe that for the object in hand, the question how far Roman canon law was held of binding authority in the English Church prior to the 16th century — a question on which Professor Maitland has thrown so brilliant and penetrating a light — is not very material. The point at issue is not the relation between the English Church and the papacy, but between the English Church and the Crown. On the other hand, the ecclesiastical courts might exceed their jurisdiction. And here the evil was counteracted by the assertion and exercise on the part of the King's Courts of the power of prohibition. " All this was settled law," says Lord Selborne. speaking of prohibitions to the ecclesiastical courts, " before the era of Parliaments: it is fully expounded by Bracton, who was one of King Henry the Third's judges."
