Introduction: Parliament faith? Parliament and the Church in England, 1529-1629

Journal article

The decision of Henry VIII and his heirs to break with the Catholic Church and to establish the Church of England using the English parliament has been of profound importance for the history of both institutions. Scholars through the ages have debated the significance of the relationship between the English Reformations and the parliamentary constitution, the importance of the religious revolutions of the sixteenth century for the primacy of statute over other species of law, and the consequences of reforming ecclesiastical matters through parliament, an institution populated predominantly by members of the laity, for the character and fortunes of the Church and religious life itself. Furthermore, the extent of parliament’s authority over matters ecclesiastical was far from established after Elizabeth I’s religious settlement of 1559: Catholic opponents of the Church of England scoffed at ‘parliament faith’ as the illegitimate invention of heretics; Protestants dissatisfied with a settlement they found insufficiently Reformed viewed parliament as a forum for the further reformation of the Church; Elizabeth I, James VI and I and Charles I believed that religious authority resided in the crown as supreme governor over the Church, in an exclusive relationship with the clergy, whose clerical parliament, convocation, persisted to assert rival claims to make ecclesiastical law. These completing claims to jurisdiction over the Church brought about much greater debate and scrutiny of the centrality of parliament itself within the polity, they contributed significantly to the increasing significance of parliament in the wider political culture of the age, and they both facilitated and anticipated parliament’s claims to assert sovereignty over Church and state in the 1640s.

Authors: Gajda, A; Beeton, A

• Publication status: Accepted
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Wiley
• Journal: Parliamentary History
• Acceptance date: 2026-09-14
• EISSN: 1750-0206
• ISSN: 0264-2824
• Language: English
• Keywords: Reformed; Catholics; Church of England; convocation; crown; ecclesiastical law; parliament; Protestant