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Oath of Supremacy

Oath of allegiance to the monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church of England

The Oath of Supremacy required any person taking public or church office in the Kingdom of England, or in its subordinate Kingdom of Ireland, to swear allegiance to the monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church. Failure to do so was to be treated as treasonable. The Oath of Supremacy was originally imposed by King Henry VIII of England through the Act of Supremacy 1534, but repealed by his elder daughter, Queen Mary I of England, and reinstated under Henry's other daughter and Mary's half-sister, Queen Elizabeth I of England, under the Act of Supremacy 1558. The Oath was later extended to include Members of Parliament (MPs) and people studying at universities. In 1537, the Irish Supremacy Act was passed by the Parliament of Ireland, establishing Henry VIII as the supreme head of the Church of Ireland. As in England, a commensurate Oath of Supremacy was required for admission to offices.

In 1801, retained by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the oath continued to bar Catholics from Parliament until substantially amended by the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829. The requirement to take the oath for Oxford University students was not removed until the Oxford University Act 1854.

The oath was finally repealed in 1969 by Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969.

Text

As published in 1535, the oath read – repealed in 1559 by Act of Supremacy 1558:

In 1559, it was published as follows – repealed in 1969 by Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969:

Punishment

Roman Catholics who refused to take the Oath of Supremacy were indicted for treason on charges of praemunire. For example, Sir Thomas More opposed the King's separation from the Roman Catholic Church in the English Reformation and refused to accept him as Supreme Head of the Church of England, a title which had been given by parliament through the Act of Supremacy of 1534. He was imprisoned in 1534 for his refusal to take the oath, because the act discredited papal authority, and his refusal to accept the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon. In 1535, he was tried for treason, convicted on perjured testimony, and beheaded.

Exceptions and retention

Under the reigns of Charles II and James II, the Oath of Supremacy was not so widely employed by the Crown. This was largely due to the Catholic sympathies and practices of these monarchs, and the resulting high number of Roman Catholics serving in official positions. Examples of officials who never had to take the Oath include the Catholic Privy Counsellors, Sir Stephen Rice and Justin McCarthy, Viscount Mountcashel. The centrality of the Oath was re-established under the reign of William III and Mary II, following the Glorious Revolution, and in Ireland following the Williamite reconquest. The Oath was retained in the Acts of Union 1800 that transferred Irish representation, still wholly Protestant, from the Irish Parliament in Dublin to the Westminster parliament, reconstituted as the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Abolition for MPs

In 1828, the Irish Catholic leader Daniel O'Connell defeated William Vesey-FitzGerald in a parliamentary by-election in County Clare. His triumph, as the first Catholic to be returned in a parliamentary election since 1688, made a clear issue of the oath, as it required that MPs acknowledge the King as "Supreme Governor" of the Church and thus forswear the Roman communion. Fearful of the widespread disturbances that might follow from continuing to insist on the letter of the oath, the government finally relented. With the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, persuading the King, George IV, and the Home Secretary, Sir Robert Peel, engaging the Whig opposition, the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 became law.{{cite web |access-date=6 April 2011 |archive-date=17 December 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101217040247/http://historyhome.co.uk/peel/religion/cespeech.htm |url-status=live

References

Cromwell, Thomas. (2012-02-25). "Oath of Supremacy 1535 (Actual Text/ Sir Thomas Audley)". queenanneboleyn.com.
(2008-03-25). "Life in Elizabethan England 21: More Religion". Elizabethan.org.
(2004). "A Thomas More Source Book". CUA Press.
(2016-08-12). "Thomas More's Utopia: Arguing for Social Justice". Routledge.

Info: Wikipedia Source

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anglicanism history-of-the-church-of-england 1559-in-law oaths reformation-in-ireland

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