In the eighth book of his treatise "Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie," Richard Hooker defends the royal headship of the Church of England in a remarkable series of theological arguments. His apologetic intention was 'to resolve the consciences' of the Disciplinarian-Puritan critics of the Elizabethan Settlement by a demonstration that the Royal Supremacy was wholly consistent with the principles of doctrinal orthodoxy as understood and upheld by the Magisterial Reformation. This study commences with a look at some current problems of interpretation and then examines Hooker's apologetic aim and methodology. Subsequent chapters demonstrate Hooker's reliance on the teaching of the Magisterial Reformers in the formulation of both the soteriological foundations of his political thought and his ecclesiology. Hooker's appeal to the authority of Patristic Christological and Trinitarian Orthodoxy in support of the Royal Supremacy is also discussed. The purpose of this book is to uncover the theological roots of a central aspect of Hooker's political thought, and thereby to attempt to shed new light on an important Elizabethan controversy.

Early modern governments constantly faced the challenge of reconciling their own authority with the will of God. Most acknowledged that an individual's first loyalty must be to God's law, but were understandably reluctant to allow this as an excuse to challenge their own powers where interpretations differed. As such, contemporaries gave much thought to how this potentially destabilising situation could be reconciled, preserving secular authority without compromising conscience. In this book, the particular relationship between the Tudor supremacy over the Church and the hermeneutics of discerning God's will is highlighted and explored. This topic is addressed by considering defences of the Henrician and Elizabethan royal supremacies over the English church, with particular reference to the thoughts and writings of Christopher St. German, and Richard Hooker. Both of these men were in broad agreement that it was the responsibility of English Christians to subordinate their subjective understandings of God's will to the interpretation of God's will propounded by the church authorities. St. German originally put forward the proposition that king in parliament, as the voice of the community of Christians in England, was authorized to definitively pronounce regarding God's will; and that obedience to the crown was in all circumstances commensurate with obedience to God's will. Salvation, as envisioned by St. German and Hooker, was thus not dependent upon adherence to a single true faith. Rather it was conditional upon a sincere effort to try to discern the true faith using the means that God had made available to the individual, particularly the collective wisdom of one's church speaking through its representatives. In tackling this fascinating dichotomy at the heart of early modern government, this study emphasizes an aspect of the defence of royal supremacy that has not heretofore been sufficiently appreciated by modern scholars, and invites consideration of how this aspect of hermeneutics is relevant to wider discussions relating to the nature of secular and divine authority.

A major reassessment of England's break with Rome

This book shows how liberal education taught Tudor and Stuart monarchs to wield pens like swords and transformed political culture in early modern Britain.

Originally published in 1969 this book considers the theoretical extent of the royal supremacy in the Elizabethan church and examines how far this supremacy was effective in practice. The first part considers the reactions of Catholics and of moderate and more enthusiastic Protestants, both clerical and lay, to a lay head of the English church and the second part investigates the limits of the queen’s authority. The documents, which range from the formal Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity to the letters of individual gentlemen who were guiding their local congregations, reflect the discrepancy between theory and practice. No previous book of this nature tried to determine the limits of Queen Elizabeth I’s powers in the localities in quite this way.