SOURCE: Lurbe, Eve D. “Political Power and Ecclesiastical Power in Richard Hooker's Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.” Cahiers Elisabethains 49, (1996): 15-22.

In the following essay, Lurbe discusses Hooker's attempt to set up a foundation for royal supremacy over the Church of England and his philosophy of Anglicanism as set down in Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.

In writing his bulky Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Richard Hooker purported to provide an a posteriori foundation to the royal supremacy over the Church, which had been instituted sixty years before by Henry VIII's 1534 Supremacy Act, and was restored in 1559 by Elizabeth I.

Beyond his deep-felt concern for civil peace, Hooker's ambition was to build up a comprehensive theory of Anglicanism. He did not merely hope to appeal to his readers through brilliant eloquence, but to convince them through masterful methodical reasoning. His standpoint is opposed to the Presbyterians', particularly the Separatists'. Hooker...