The Royal Supremacy Over The Church Of England

The title Supreme Governor of the Church of England expresses the constitutional principle, established at the English Reformation, that the English monarch rather than the Pope holds ultimate authority over the Church of England. Henry VIII first claimed this authority under the title Supreme Head of the Church of England, asserted through the Act of Supremacy of 1534, passed after the papacy refused to annul Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon; the break placed the English church under royal rather than papal jurisdiction while leaving most of its Catholic doctrine and liturgy initially intact.

The title itself was softened to Supreme Governor under Elizabeth I's Act of Supremacy 1558, a change generally read as addressing theological discomfort, including from Elizabeth herself, with a temporal ruler, and particularly a female one, claiming headship over Christ's church in the way the earlier title implied; governor conveyed administrative and legal supremacy without the more explicitly spiritual claim of headship. The office is distinct from Archbishop of Canterbury, the Church's senior bishop and its spiritual leader in matters of doctrine and pastoral authority; the monarch's role is constitutional and administrative rather than sacramental or theological.