Dec. 14. 



1850.1 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



481 



ence with great promises of returns to subscri- 

 bers, and heavy engagements to printers, paper- 

 makers, and editors. Its only necessary expenses 

 ■would be those of management; and if the society 

 were very small, these expenses would be so too. 

 It is, indeed, hardly possible to imagine that they 

 should be such as not to leave something to be 

 funded for future use, if they did not furnish 

 means for immediate display ; but it seems better 

 to wait patiently until such real substantial sup- 

 port is guaranteed as may prevent all apprehension 

 on that score. S. R. Maitland. 



DEFENDER OF THE FAITH. 



(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 attril)ute 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 tlie tliird, 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 Lu- 

 therans, 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, aii<l now in the British 

 Museum), whereby the Pope, " holding it just to 

 distinguish those who have undertnken such pious 

 labours for defending the faith of Christ with every 

 honour and conimendation," decrees that to the 

 title of King the sulyecis of the royal controver- 

 sialist shall add the title " Fidei Defensori." The 

 pontiff adds, that a more woitliy title could not be 

 iound. 



Your correspondent. Colonel Anstruther, calls 

 attention to the statement made by Mr. Christo- 

 pher Wren, Secretary of the Order of the Garter 

 (a. d. 1730), in his letter to Francis Peck, on the 

 authority of the Register ot' the Order in his jios- 

 sessi()n ; which letter is (ptf)ted by Buike {Dunn, 

 and Ext. Bur., iv. 408.), that " King Henry VII. 

 had the title of Defender of the Faitli." It is not 

 found in any acts or instruments of his reign that 

 I am acfjuaiuted with, nor in the proclamation on 

 his interment, nor in any of the ej)ita|)hs engiaved 

 on his magnificent tomb. (Sandford, Cleneul. Hist.) 

 Nor is it pioijable that Po|)e Leo X., in those days 

 of di])lomalic intercourse willi Enghiml, would 

 have bestowed on Henry VI II., as a spcM'inl and 

 per.sonal 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, pro- 

 mises to maintain and defend the Christian reli- 

 gion {Rat. Pali., 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 taith. {Rot. Pari, 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 de- 

 fender of the fiiith. 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 inherit- 

 able 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 him- 

 self. It was given, as we know, for his assertion 

 of doctrines of the Church of Rome ; yet he re- 

 tained it after his separation from the Roman 

 Catholic communion, and after it had been for- 

 mally revoked and withdrawn by Pope Paul III. 

 in the twenty-seventh year of Henry VIII., upon 

 the king's apostacy in turning suppressor of reli- 

 gious houses. In 1543, the Refonnation legisla- 

 ture and the Anti-papal king, without condescend- 

 ing 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 

 (or ever to the Engli.sh crown by the statute 

 35 Hen. VIII. c. 3., from which I make the fol- 

 lowing extract, as its language bears upon the 

 question : 



" Where our most dre.id, &c., lord the king, hath 

 heretofore been, and is justly, lawfully, and notoriou.sly 

 knowen, named, publislied, and declared to be King of 

 England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, 

 and of the ("hureh of England and also of Ireland, in 

 earth supreine head ; and lialh justly and lawfully 

 used the title and name thereof as to his Grace apper- 

 tainetli. Ke it enacted. &c., that all antl singidar his 

 Gr.ice's subjects, &c., shall from henceforth accept and 

 take the same Ids Majesty's style .... viz., in the 

 Knglisli tongue by the.se words, Henry the Eighth, by 

 the grace of God King of England, France, and Ire- 

 land, IJefender of the Faith, and of the Church of 

 England, and also of Ireland, in earth tlie supreme 

 head ; and that the said style, &c., shall be, &;e., united 



