(Vol. ii., p. 442.)
It is quite startling to be told that the title of "Defender of the Faith"
was used by any royal predecessor of Henry VIII.
Selden (_Titles of Honour_, ed 1631, p. 54) says:
"The beginning and ground of that attribute of DEFENDER OF THE FAITH,
which hath been perpetually, in the later ages, added to the style of
the kings of England, (not only in the first person, but frequent also
in the second and in the third, as common use shows in the formality of
instruments of conveyance, leases and such like) is most certainly
known. It began in Henry the VIII. For he, in those awaking times, upon
the quarrel of the Romanists and Lutherans, wrote a volume against
Luther," &c.
Selden then states the well-known occasion upon which this title was
conferred, and sets out the Bull of Leo X. (then extant in the Collection
of Sir Robert Cotton, and now in the British Museum), whereby the Pope,
"holding it just to distinguish those who have undertaken such pious
labours for defending the faith of Christ with every honour and
commendation," decrees that to the title of King the subjects of the royal
controversialist shall add the title "Fidei Defensori." The pontiff adds,
that a more worthy title could not be found.
Your correspondent, COLONEL ANSTRUTHER, calls attention to the statement
made by Mr. Christopher Wren, Secretary of the Order of the Garter (A.D.
1736), in his letter to Francis Peck, on the authority of the Register of
the Order in his possession; which letter is quoted by Burke (_Dorm. and
Ext. Bar._, iv. 408.), that "King Henry VII. had the title Defender of the
Faith." It is not found in any acts or instruments of his reign that I am
acquainted with, nor in the proclamation on his interment, nor in any of
the epitaphs engraved on his magnificent tomb. (Sandford, _Geneal. Hist._)
Nor is it probable that Pope Leo X., in those days of diplomatic
intercourse with England, would have bestowed on Henry VIII., as a special
and personal distinction and reward, a title that had been used by his
royal predecessors.
I am not aware that any such title is attributed to the sovereign in any of
the English records anterior to 1521; but that many English kings gloried
in professing their zeal to defend the Church and religion, appears from
many examples. Henry IV., in the second year of his reign, promises to
maintain and defend the Christian religion (_Rot. Parl._, iii. 466.); and
on his renewed promise, in the fourth year of his reign, to defend the
Christian faith, the Commons piously grant a subsidy (_Ibid._, 493.); and
Henry VI., in the twentieth year of his reign, acts as keeper of the
Christian faith. (_Rot. Parl._, v. 61.)
In the admonition used in the investiture of a knight with the insignia of
the Garter, he is told to take the crimson robe, and being therewith
defended, to be bold to fight and shed his blood for Christ's faith, the
liberties of the Church, and the defence of the oppressed. In this sense,
the sovereign and every knight became a sworn defender of the faith. Can
this duty have come to be popularly attributed as part of the royal style
and title?
The Bull of Leo X., which confers the title on Henry VIII. personally, does
not make it inheritable by his successors, so that none but that king
himself could claim the honour. The Bull granted two years afterwards by
Clement VII. merely confirms the grant of Pope Leo to the king himself. It
was given, as we know, for his assertion of doctrines of the Church of
Rome; yet he retained it after his separation from the Roman Catholic
communion, and after it had been formally revoked and withdrawn by Pope
Paul III. in the twenty-seventh year of Henry VIII., upon the king's
apostacy in turning suppressor of religious houses. In 1543, the
Reformation legislature and the Anti-papal king, without condescending to
notice any Papal Bulls, assumed to treat the title that the Pope had given
and taken away as a subject of Parliamentary gift, and annexed it for ever
to the English crown by the statute 35 Hen. VIII. c. 3., from which I make
the following extract, as its language bears upon the question:
"Where our most dread, &c., lord the king, hath heretofore been, and is
justly, lawfully, and notoriously knowen, named, published, and
declared to be King of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the
Faith, and the Church of England and also of Ireland, in earth supreme
head; and hath justly and lawfully used the title and name thereof as
to his Grace appertaineth. Be it enacted, &c., that all and singular
his Graces' subject, &c., shall from henceforth accept and take the
same his Majesty's style ... viz., in the English tongue by these
words, Henry the Eighth, by the grace of God King of England, France,
and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and of the Church of England, and
also of Ireland, in earth the supreme head; and that the said style,
&c., shall be, &c., united {482} and annexed for ever to the imperial
crown of his highness's realms of England."
By the supposed authority of this statute, and notwithstanding the
revocation of the title by Pope Paul III., and its omission in the Bull
addressed by Pope Julius III. to Philip and Mary, that princess, before and
after her marriage, used this style, and the statute having, been
re-established by 1 Eliz. c. 1., the example has been followed by her royal
Protestant successors, who wished thereby to declare themselves Defenders
of the Anti-papal Church. The learned Bishop Gibson, in his _Codex_ (i. 33,
note), treats this title as having commenced in Henry VIII. So do Blount,
Cowel, and such like authorities.