This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. Searching, reading, printing, or downloading EEBO-TCP texts is reserved for the authorized users of these project partner institutions. Permission must be granted for subsequent distribution, in print or electronically, of this text, in whole or in part. Please contact project staff at eebotcp-info@umich.edu for further information or permissions.
[Obs.] THe words of the Act are, That forasmuch as the Kings Majesty is justly and lawfully Supream Head on Earth under God of the Church of England, and for the good Exercise of that most Royal Dignity and Office (viz. of Supream Head of the Church) hath made Thomas Lord Cromwel (who was not only Lord Privy Seal (as in the Act is exprest) but Master of the Kings Jewel-House, Baron of Ok∣ham,
Knight of the Garter, Earl of Essex, and Lord Great Chamberlain,)
2. His Vice-Gerent, (for the good and due administration of Justice to be had in all Causes and Cases touching the Eccle∣siastical Jurisdiction, and for the Godly Reformation of all Errors, Heresies, and Abuses in the said Church, so as he in∣joy'd Dignities and Offices of a mixt na∣ture, Ecclesiastical and Civil, and thereby was placed above all the Lords Spiritual, and above all the Lords Temporal of the following Degrees, and not only in re∣spect of his Temporal Dignities, but as Vice-Gerent in Ecclesiasticals) had power given him, and to his Successors in that Office, to sit above those Degrees in Par∣liament, and to have a Voice and Liberty to assent or dissent as other Lords.
3. But there hath been none imploy'd in this Office since that time, (as need∣less I conceive) for the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in their Provinces, and the Bishops in their Diocesses have ever since in a manner suppli'd the Duty of that Office under their own Titles and by their own Jurisdictions, especially the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is rankt in the next place in this Act, and in all Pawns (except this) where some of the Bloud Royal are not exemplars.