Richard Hooker and the Defence of the Royal Supremacy

Abstract

Richard Hooker (1554–1600) was an influential and famous figure in the Church of England and one of the most important theologians during the reign of Elizabeth I. Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie – Hooker’s best-known work – is a reply to the general theological and ecclesiastical principles of Puritanism. This subtle work deals mainly with the problems of the church as an argument for the position of the Queen as the Supreme Governor of the Church. In this article, the author reconstructs Hooker’s argument and points out his fundamental theological principles. In the author’s opinion, Hooker approaches the issue from two main theological angles: first, from the position of the crucial distinction of Reformation soteriology between the so-called two kingdoms; second, he applies the magisterial reformers’ test of ecclesiological orthodoxy. He tried to convince his opponents by the most compelling type of argument they knew – the theological one – that the royal headship was wholly consistent with the cardinal principles of the ecclesiology and political theory of the magisterial Reformation.