The Act of Supremacy 1558 (1 Eliz 1 c 1), sometimes referred to as the Act of Supremacy 1559, is an Act of the Parliament of England, which replaced the original Act of Supremacy 1534, and passed under the auspices of Elizabeth I. The 1534 Act was issued by Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, which arrogated ecclesiastical authority to the monarchy, but which had been repealed by Mary I. Along with the Act of Uniformity 1558, the Act made up what is generally referred to as the Elizabethan Religious Settlement. The Act remained in place until the 19th century, when some sections began to be repealed. By 1969, all provisions, bar section 8 (which still remains in force), had been repealed by various Acts, with the whole Act repealed in Northern Ireland between 1950 and 1953. The Act The Act revived ten Acts which Mary I had revoked, significantly clarified and narrowed the definition of what constituted heresy, and confirmed Elizabeth as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Supreme Governor was a suitably equivocal title that made Elizabeth head of the Church without ever saying she was. This was important because many felt that a woman could not rule the church. The Act also made it a crime to assert the authority of any foreign prince, prelate, or other authority, and was aimed at abolishing the authority of the Pope in England. A third offence was high treason, punishable by death. The Oath The Oath of Supremacy, imposed by the Act, provided for any person taking public or church office in England to swear allegiance to the monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. Failure to so swear was a crime, although it did not become treason until 1562, when the Supremacy of the Crown Act 1562 made refusal to take the oath a treasonable offence. The Oath was later extended to include Members of Parliament and those studying at universities: all but one of the bishops lost their posts and a hundred fellows of Oxford colleges were deprived, as many dignitaries resigned rather than take the oath. The bishops who were removed from the ecclesiastical bench were replaced by appointees who would agree to the reforms. Text of the oath as published in 1559: This had a specific impact on English Roman Catholics since it expressly indicates that they must forswear allegiance to Roman Catholicism, inasmuch as