"Illos decet vocari reges, qui vigilant, _defendunt_, et regunt
Ecclesiam Dei et populum Ejus, imitantes regem psalmographum,"
&c.--Vid. _Rogeri de Hoveden Annal._, par. post., Sec.. Regis Officium;
ap. Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores post Bedam, ed. Francof. 1601, p. 604.
Conf. Prynne's _Chronol. Records_, ed. Lond. 1666, tom i. p. 310.
This law appears always to have been received as of authority after the
Conquest; and it may, perhaps, be considered as the first seed of that
constitutional church supremacy vested in our sovereigns, which several of
our kings before the Reformation had occasion to vindicate against Papal
claims, and which Henry VIII. strove to carry in the other direction, to an
unconstitutional excess.