English Reformation
The English Reformation was part of the Protestant Reformation. Many Christian churches in Europe broke away from Rome. Each of the countries that went through this process did so in a different way. Earlier the Roman Catholic Church had supreme powers.
Henry VIII broke ties with the church and became head of the English church. This was done in 1534 in the Acts of Supremacy. It was the beginning of the Church of England. His friend Thomas Cranmer became Henry's Archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer would also go on to advise Edward Henry's son when he took the throne in 1549. For years, the Church of England was almost exactly the same as the Catholic Church, except that it was ruled by the King instead of the Pope. This is different from the Reformation on the European continent, where the reformers wanted big changes right away.
There were several causes for the English Reformation. One of these was that Henry VIII, who was King of England, wanted to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon. Another reason was because Henry wanted the Church's wealth and power, and got them with the dissolution of the monasteries.
The Protestant Reformation in Scotland, however, was based more on the teachings of Martin Luther and John Calvin, so it was more like the Reformation in continental Europe.
English Reformation Media
King Henry VIII initiated the separation of the English Church from the Catholic Church by declaring himself, not the Pope, the Supreme Head of the Church of England. Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger. Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid.
The Tyndale Bible was the basis for later English translations.
Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's first wife. Attributed to Joannes Corvus, National Portrait Gallery, London.
Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second wife, by an unknown artist. National Portrait Gallery, London.
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex (c. 1485–1540), Henry VIII's chief minister (1532–1540).
Thomas More, with John Fisher the leader of political resistance against the break with Rome. Both were executed in 1535.
St Paul's Cross (in the lower left corner of the painting) was a prominent preaching cross on the grounds of Old St Paul's Cathedral.
Remains of Finchale Priory, a Benedictine monastery near Durham that was closed in 1535
The chapter house of Forde Abbey, a Cistercian monastery closed in 1539 and converted into a country house
The 14th-century Chantry Chapel of St Mary the Virgin in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. Chantries were endowments that paid priests to say masses for the dead to lessen their time in purgatory.
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