Supreme Governor of the Church of England Church's assets in England and declared the Church of England as the established church with himself as its head. The Act of Supremacy 1534 confirmed the King's status as having supremacy over the church and required the peers to swear an oath recognising Henry's supremacy. Henry's daughter, Mary I, attempted to restore the English Church's allegiance to the Pope and repealed the Act of Supremacy in 1555. Elizabeth I ascended to the throne in 1558 and the next year Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy 1558 that restored the original act. To placate critics, the Oath of Supremacy which peers
History of the Church of England right of all appeals to Rome, effectively ending the Pope's influence. The first Act of Supremacy confirmed Henry by statute as the "Supreme Head of the Church of England" in 1536. (Due to clergy objections the contentious term "Supreme Head" for the monarch later became "Supreme Governor of the Church of England" – which is the title held by the reigning monarch to the present.) Such constitutional changes made it not only possible for Henry to have his marriage annulled but also gave him access to the considerable wealth that the Church had amassed. Thomas Cromwell, as Vicar General, launched