Oath of Supremacy Oath of Supremacy The Oath of Supremacy required any person taking public or church office in England to swear allegiance to the monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. 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 The Oath of Supremacy was originally imposed by King Henry VIII of England through the Act of Supremacy 1534, but repealed by his daughter, Queen Mary I of England and reinstated under Mary's half-sister, Queen Elizabeth I of England under the Act of Supremacy 1559. The Oath was later extended to include Members of Parliament and people studying at
Religious views of George Washington an Anglican vestryman and warden for more than fifteen years when Virginia had an established church. Washington's great-great-grandfather, Lawrence Washington, was an Anglican rector in England. George Washington was baptized in infancy into the Church of England, which, until 1776, was the established church of Virginia. As the British monarch is Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and its clergy swear an Oath of Supremacy to the monarch, the American churches established the Episcopal Church after the American Revolution. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786) disestablished the Church, although it retained some lands which had been purchased with