The Obedience of a Christen man, and how Christen rulers ought to govern, wherein also (if thou mark diligently) thou shalt find eyes to perceive the crafty convience of all iugglers. is a 1528 book by the English Protestant author William Tyndale. Its title is now commonly modernised in its spelling and abbreviated to The Obedience of a Christian Man. It was first published by Merten de Keyser in Antwerp. It is best known for advocating that the king of a country was the head of that country's church, rather than the pope, and to be the first instance, in the English language at any rate, of advocating the divine right of kings, a concept mistakenly attributed to the Catholic Church.[1]
It is believed that the book had a great influence in the process that led Henry VIII of England to declare the Act of Supremacy, by which he became Supreme Head of the Church of England, in 1534.[2] However, Tyndale's opposition to Henry VIII divorce from Catherine of Aragon and his Protestant views earned him the king's enmity and he would eventually be arrested and executed for heresy.