English anti-papal legislation. Like the Statute of Provisors (1351), it resulted from a nationalism and anti-papalism that was widespread in later 14th-century England and was designed to protect rights claimed by the English crown against encroachment by the papacy. It was a powerful weapon for the English king; it was used, for instance, to prevent Bishop Henry Beaufort from becoming papal legate in England and Henry VIII several times resorted to it.