John Rowlands, Holbein:, p. 91:

"Clearly the convictions of Holbein's friends and associates, as well as significant commissions, point to him having a lively interest in the cause of religious reform. Cromwell, as a skillful propagandist, was not slow to employ Holbein in the furtherance of the new reformed doctrines from the Continent that he supported. A key work in this campaign, and produced at Cromwell's instigation, was the English Bible, an amalgam of texts put together by Miles Coverdale. Holbein provided an elaborate woodcut border for the title-page for this. Its iconography is a statement not only of the new Doctrine of Justification by Faith, and the Apostleship of all the faithful, with the denial of the primacy of St. Peter and of the Pope as his successor, but also of the new more exalted position of the King as Supreme Head of the Church. The King is represented at the bottom of Holbein's title-page design holding an Imperial sword in one hand and with the other delivering a bible to his bishops. In the campaign to establish Henry's title to supremacy over matters spiritual as well as temporal, Cromwell's pamphleteers had to claim, in line with late medieval antipapal theory, an Imperial crown for Henry which Wolsey had also earlier sought, but in vain, for the King. Thus on Holbein's title-page kings as well as bishops are shown kneeling before an Emperor who, while not looking like Henry, was obviously intended to be the head of the Church in England."