"The commandment and will of Princes": Article XXI and the Anglican experience

The Church of Ireland doth receive and approve The Book of the Articles of Religion, commonly called the Thirty-Nine Articles ...

The Church of Ireland's 1870 Declaration makes @benjamindcrosby's Twitter poll on the Articles straightforward for me - it's 'Yes' to each and every Article.  And if we need clarity as to what "receive and approve" might mean, then the Declaration for Subscription required of all those who receive Orders in the Church of Ireland provides such clarity:

I assent to the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion ... I believe the doctrine of the Church of Ireland, as therein set forth, to be agreeable to the Word of God.

What then of the poll results on Article XXI?

Thus far in the poll, it is the first Article to face such a large 'No' vote - with the 'Yes' vote barely ahead.  The focus for discontent was the opening sentence of the Article:

General Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of Princes.

It appears to be something of a provocation both for advocates of a Hauweras-inspired rejection of Christendom and for those who follow the later Tractarian view that separation of Church and state is good and necessary for the Church.  Against the former, we can note Oliver O'Donovan's insistence that "the Christendom idea has to be located correctly as an aspect of the church's understanding of mission" - it is "this triumph of Christ among the nations".  As to the later Tractarian vision of a 'free church' (ironic indeed!), Torrance Kirby reminds us that the Article's opening sentence is deeply patristic - "all seven of the Ecumenical Councils of the ancient Church were summoned by emperors".  In the words of Canon II of the Church of Ireland's 1634 Canons, this understanding of authority was based on that exercised by "Christian Emperors in the Primitive Church".

There is also, however, that fact that PECUSA omitted this Article from its version of the Articles:

The Twenty-first of the former Articles is omitted; because it is partly of a local and civil nature, and is provided for, as to the remaining parts of it, in other Articles.

This carefully worded statement is not a rejection of the Article.  The reference to "Princes" obviously was unsuitable in a republic - that is the Article's "local and civil nature".  Key to its reference to "other Articles" is Article XXXIV's affirmation of the authority of "every particular or national Church".  It is this which is embodied and expressed in the opening sentence of Article XXI.  It is the corollary of Article XXXVII:

The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England.

If the Bishop of Rome has no jurisdiction over a national Church, who does?  After the manner of "the Primitive Church", it is the Crown.  Canon I of the Church of England's 1604 Canons articulated the significance of the Royal Supremacy:

all Bishops of this Province, or Deans, Archdeacons, Parsons, Vicars, and all other Ecclesiastical Persons, shall faithfully keep and observe, and (as much as in them lieth) shall cause to be observed and kept of others, all and singular Laws and Statutes made for restoring to the Crown of this Kingdom, the ancient Jurisdiction over the State Ecclesiastical, and abolishing of all Foreign Power repugnant to the same.

The Royal Supremacy was a means of guarding the rights and liberties of a national Church, a bulwark against the pretensions of one See to universal authority and jurisdiction.

As an example of the ongoing significance of this experience for Anglicanism, we might consider Saepius Officio.  Noting that the judgement of Apostolicae Curae was based, in large part, on the decrees of the Council of Trent, Saepius Offico declared that the Council had no authority over the Church of England and its sister Churches:

... the Council of Trent, in which our Fathers took no part ... the authority of that Council has certainly never been admitted in our country.

And so, the authority claimed by the Roman See to determine what additional rites beyond prayer and the laying on of episcopal hands were necessary for catholic ordination was rejected:

The liberty of national Churches to reform their own rites may not thus be removed at the pleasure of Rome.

Here in Saepius Officio, then, we can see the significance of the historical experience of the Royal Supremacy.  Precisely because "General Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of Princes" - that is, one particular See cannot convene a Council to override and set aside the rights and liberties of national Churches - the judgement of Trent, and of Apostolica Curae, cannot invalidate how the reformed ecclesia Anglicana orders its catholic life and witness.

This is the importance of Article XXI and, in particular, its opening sentence: it allowed the ecclesia Anglicana to exercise its rights and liberties to reform and order its life and witness in conformity with "the primitive and Catholic Church", free from (in Hooker's words - LEP VIII.6.2) the "inordinate sovereignty" of a particular See.