We can only state the popular idea of it, and then show what it really is. The popular idea of it in this country is, that the Sovereign of England was, and is, the head of the Church of England in spiritual as well as temporal matters, and is the superior of the Archbishops and Bishops in all that relates to their offices as such, and is governed by his or her own ideas of what is true and right in matters of doctrine and discipline. Of course this is only the common idea, but it is held by many people of education and general intelligence nevertheless, who are, and are usually considered, well informed.

A recent writer after citing and examining the legal authorities, and writers of England since the Reformation, on this subject, says, " These numerous authorities repeat again and again the same ojjinions touching the supremacy of the Crown. According to them the Royal Supremacy is simply and strictly a temporal or civil power over all causes and persons in things temporal, and over spiritual persons and causes as far as their temporal or civil accidents are concerned. But it has no inherent spiritual power as such, nor ecclesiastical authority, whatsoever, the spirituality alone possessing the power of the Keys." * Lord Selborne the learned and eminent Lord High Chancellor in Mr. Gladstone's late Government says, " The Sovereign has not (as some suppose) a temporal supremacy in temj)oral things and a spiritual supremacy in spiritual things; it is one undivided temj)(>ral supremacy, extending to all persons, causes, and things, whether ecclesiastical or civil, of which the law of the land takes cognizance, and ujjon which that law has