Letters to the Editor
THE KING'S TITLE
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sur,—Your correspondent, Mr. Whateley Smith, is apparently unaware that the title " Defender of the Faith " was conferred on King Henry VIII by the Pope, as a reward for his treatise, Assertio Septem sacramentorum, or Defence of the Seven Sacraments, against Luther.
It means, therefore, " Defender of the Catholic Faith," which the King still is by virtue of his position as the Head of the Catholic Church of this country, in temporal things.
He is, of course, defender of faith in general, and of all faiths ; but if we take the word in that sense, the description is not true, for he is also defender of un-faith ; the atheist is as much under the protection of the law as the Moslem or Jew.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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