Oooh yass

Yass one of the complications by establishment status in the minds of impressionable young viars. They assume that they are agents of the state, and eve of the temporal order, though they are not supposed to be. Even in the suspicious days of Henry VIII, when young cocky Ann Boleyn was very suspicious of everyone that defended the old status quo and of course those that defended Queen Catherine's right to the throne such as the canon lawyers in the monasteries under Fisher at Rochester, there were lots of elements of the old faith retained, such as requiem masses for the holy souls of kings and queens in chantry chapels, abandoned for the most part by the rank and file of the lower clergy, though again, not because they should have, or were really authorised to. A low church Ecclesia Anglica (an ecclesia anglicana never really existed in english law - ER Reports) was never intended by the monarchs or the secretaries of state, such as Lord Somerset. Maybe the old lady is too low church and too driven by Geneva and Belfast these days. Also the separation of the spiritual from the temporal was also retained at constitution, especially from the old days of the Gelasian Magna Carta and beyond under Edward VI, despite the Act of Settlement of those around Elizabeth who were defensive puritans, and wholly unnecessary really, for the most part, since the ordinary people of England could see that the real enemies of freedom were not the papal states and their governors, but the puritans and their witchdoctors, hunting scottish queens. So old elements were retained precisely so as to guarantee the autonomy of the vicars and the freedom of their parishioners in matters of conscience. So a simple state-church was never envisaged by Henry VIII or even by the saintly luminary Elizabeth I.