Protestantism in England From the Times of Henry VIII - James Aitken Wylie

we are disposed to think, in the English
Reformation was the want of a body of canons for
the government of the Church and the regulation of
spiritual affairs. A code of laws, as is well known,
was drawn up by Cranmer,[7] and was ready for
the signature of Edward VI when he died. It was
revived under Elizabeth, with a view to its legal
enactment; but the queen, thinking that it trenched
upon her supremacy, would not hear of it. Thus left
without a discipline, the Church of England has, to
a large extent, been dependent on the will of the
sovereign as regards its government. Touching the
nature and extent of the power embodied in the
royal supremacy, the divines of the Church of
England have all along held different opinions. The
first Reformers regarded the headship of the
sovereign mainly in the light of a protest against
the usurped authority of the Pope, and a declaration
that the king was supreme over all classes of his
subjects, and head of the nation as a mixed civil
and ecclesiastical colaboration. The "headship" of
the Kings of England did not vest in them one
important branch of the Papal headship that of
exercising spiritual functions. It denied to them the
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