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 Henry's daughter, Mary I, attempted to restore the English Church's allegiance to the Pope and repealed the Act of Supremacy in 1555.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
General Synod of the Church of England General Synod of the Church of England The General Synod is the deliberative and legislative body of the Church of England. The synod was instituted in 1970, replacing the Church Assembly, and is the culmination of a process of rediscovering self-government for the Church of England that had started in the 1850s. Before 1919, any change to the Church's worship or governance had to be by Act of Parliament, which resulted in little being done. In 1919, the Convocations of the Provinces of Canterbury and York adopted the constitution of the National Church Assembly proposed by the Representative Church Council