Supreme Head 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. Henry's daughter, Queen Mary I, a staunch Catholic, attempted to restore the English church's allegiance to the Pope and repealed the Act of Supremacy in 1555. Her half-sister, the Protestant Elizabeth I, took the throne in 1558 and the next year, Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy of 1559 that restored the original act. The new Oath of Supremacy that nobles were required to swear gave the Queen's title as "Supreme Governor" of the church rather than "Supreme Head", to avoid
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