Henry VIII and the Church of England
The Church of England, also known as the Anglican Church, was founded by Henry VIII (June 28, 1491- January 28, 1547), the king of England. Henry was married to Katherine of Aragon, but she was unable to produce a male heir to succeed to the throne. Henry and Katherine had a daughter, Mary, but a female successor to the throne would likely have precipitated a war of succession, which Henry wanted to avoid for the sake of peace in his war-torn country.
Katherine had been the wife of Henry’s brother Arthur, and after Arthur died, Henry was married off to Katherine by his father, who apparently didn’t want to forfeit Katherine’s dowry. Years later, after Henry VIII became king, he became convinced that the marriage with Katherine was cursed because of the proscription against marrying one’s brother’s wife in Leviticus 20: 21: “…if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing…and they shall be childless.” They weren’t exactly childless—Katherine had suffered five still-births, and had a daughter, Mary, who was alive. But Henry took it as a curse preventing him from having a male heir. Pope Clement VII was open to granting an annulment so that Henry could remarry, but the pope was apparently under the thumb of the Holy Roman emperor Charles V, who was also the nephew of Katherine. Henry didn’t get his annulment.
Henry was a devout Catholic, and had been dubbed Defender of the Faith by Pope Leo X, for his pamphlet against Martin Luther, entitled “Declaration of the Seven Sacraments Against Martin Luther.” Henry hated Luther and his movement. Luther recognized only two sacraments, baptism and the Lord’s Supper (eucharist). And so, when Henry broke with the Roman Catholic Church and made himself head of the new Church of England, he still considered himself and his church Catholic—schism without heresy. He ordered an English Bible placed in each church, which was acceptable to the Roman church. The Church of England would not become heretical until after Henry’s death.
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For further reading, see:
Roland H.Bainton. The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, enlarged edition. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985).
Also see the Wikipedia article on Henry VIII https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII