Why does henry viii created anglicanism

As a result, Henry piled increasing pressure on the clergy, and through a series of acts asserted royal supremacy over the Church. This culminated in the Act of Supremacy followed shortly by the Treasons Act. These granted him sovereignty over the Church in England and made disavowing this treason. This unprecedented change meant that a comprehensive restructuring of every sector of English governance and society was required: in an age where religious matters were of great importance and the Church was extremely powerful, life without Rome had been unthinkable.

In , Cromwell and Henry began a process that became known as the Dissolution of the Monasteries. They disbanded monasteries, convents, nunneries and friaries across the country, seizing their material assets, siphoning off their income and often destroying the buildings themselves or selling off the land they were built on for profit.

In , he also faced a major rebellion in the north, known today as the Pilgrimage of Grace. This was partly motivated by religious concerns, as well as economic and political.

However, despite the upheaval of the momentous Act of Supremacy, Henry did achieve one aim with no issue: his divorce. His marriage to Catherine of Aragon was annulled in May , although he married Anne Boleyn earlier than this being formalised.

At the Reformation, therefore, the English did not so much create a new Church, as adapt what they had already formed into something appropriate for new circumstances. Yet this, more than any other form of Reformation, was a very contested process and hardly a single event, uneven over time and place, and to the eyes of both other Reformers and Catholics , very untidy. When the Pope resisted, this then gave Henry the chance to gain greater leadership of the English Church and to seize control of much money and land, chiefly through closing monasteries.

Henry also remained a determined Catholic in his thinking, so the real work of reshaping the doctrine, order and worship of the English Church was not his, but those who came later. Whilst revisionist history in recent decades has rolled back the thesis of an impending Protestant Reformation from below, we should also not underestimate the importance of earlier Reformed ideas and practices, and of martyrs.

No monarch has ever had anything like full control of the Church in England. Just look at Magna Carta, that great English constitutional document, whose first, and to this day continuing, clause affirms the freedom of the English Church from intrusion. That is a major reason too why there were bloody Civil Wars in the 17th century.

But by , Henry had a big problem: His first marriage, to Catherine of Aragon, had failed to produce a son and male heir to the throne. In June , the heavily pregnant Anne Boleyn was crowned queen of England in a lavish ceremony. Anne Boleyn, of course, would fail to produce the desired son although she gave birth to a daughter who would become Elizabeth I , and by , Henry had fallen for another lady-in-waiting, Jane Seymour.

That May, after her former ally Cromwell helped engineer her conviction of adultery, incest and conspiracy against the king, Anne was executed. But Edward died young in , and his Catholic half-sister, Queen Mary I , would reverse many of these changes during her reign. It would be left to Queen Elizabeth I , the daughter of Anne Boleyn and ruler of England for nearly 50 years, to complete the Reformation her father had begun.