Defender of the Faith

Should not King Edward the Confessor's claim to *defend the church as God's Vicar* be added to the several valuable notices in relation to the title *Defender of the Faith*, with which some of your learned contributors have favoured us through your pages? According to Hoveden, one of the laws adopted from the Anglo-Saxons by *William* was: "Rex autem atque vicarius Ejus ad hoc est constitutus, ut regnum terrenum, populum Dei, et super omnia *sanctam ecclesiam*, revereatur et ab injuriatoribus *defendat*," &c. Which duty of princes was further enforced by the words— "Illos decet vocari reges, q…