The Henrician Reformation in England: Henry VIII and His Battle with the Catholic Church

During the 1530's and the 1540's England witnessed many drastic changes in the spheres of religious thought and theology, changes that swept the entire country in a very swift and powerful way. Strangely enough however, this change came not from a fervent desire to correct or cleanse the church, as in the case of the Luther Reformation, but rather was brought on almost entirely simply because Henry VIII wanted a divorce. His political need for a male heir combined with what he saw as Catherine's continued inability to provide him with just that, caused Henry VIII to seek for a way in which he might divorce Catherine and then marry Ann Boelyn, whom he thought would surely provided him with the male heir that he so desperately wanted.

Henry VIII originally appealed to the pope with the hope that his marriage to Catherine might be annulled on the grounds that she was first his brother's wife, however, when his appeal was denied (largely in part due to the fact that Rome and subsequently the pope was under the control of Charles V, nephew of Catherine of Aragon) Henry VIII wasted no time in launching a theological war against the papacy, in which he relied heavily on the writings of many theologians but in particular William Tyndale.

Then in1534, due largely to the influence of Thomas Cromwell, parliament ratified the Act of Supremacy which with the line, "The King and his heirs and successors from henceforth shall be taken for the only supreme head of the church of England,"[1] gave Henry VIII exactly what he was seeking-Royal Supremacy. This was important because as the supreme head of the church in England Henry VIII was now able to sanction the actions of Thomas Cranmer the Archbishop of Canterbury who had the year before in 1533, speaking directly of Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine, declared, "it was indispensable for the Pope to license any such marriage."[2]