It was now called to deal a final blow.

Step by step the ground had been cleared for the great Statute by which the new character of the English Church was defined in the session of 1534.

By the Act of Supremacy authority in all matters ecclesiastical was vested solely in the Crown.

The courts spiritual became as thoroughly the king's courts as the temporal courts at Westminster.

The Statute ordered that the king "shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England, and shall have and enjoy annexed and united to the Imperial Crown of this realm as well the title and state thereof as all the honours, jurisdictions, authorities, immunities, profits, and commodities to the said dignity belonging, with full power to visit, repress, redress, reform, and amend all such errors, heresies, abuses, contempts, and enormities, which by any manner of spiritual authority or jurisdiction might or may lawfully be reformed." [Sidenote: The Vicar-General] The full import of the Act of Supremacy was only seen in the following year.