Praemunire

In English history, the crime of appealing to any foreign authority in any act of national interest. Though of ancient origin, it became an issue of particular national interest during the 16th Century when Henry VIII—in breaking from Rome to establish the "Church of England" with him as the "supreme head"—used it as the pretext for banning Roman Catholics from appealing to the pope and for acting against them when they resisted his policies. To make his point more emphatically as well as to set an example, his lord chancellor Cardinal Thomas Worsey, who was tasked with getting him the divorce he wanted from Rome but who failed to, became the first to be so charged in October 1529.