Henry VIII wanted a divorce from Catherine so he could marry Anne Boleyn. The problem was that divorce was not allowed by the Catholic Church without special permission from the Pope.

Henry first tried to convince Catherine to become a nun. If she became a nun, their marriage would be automatically cancelled, or annulled, and Henry would be free to marry again without the Pope’s permission. But she would not.

In 1530, a former priest named Thomas Cranmer had an idea. Cranmer was a Protestant.

In 1530, Henry sent Cranmer to Rome to argue his case for a divorce in front of the Pope. When the Pope again refused Henry’s divorce, Cranmer thought up a legal argument. He argued that the King of England enjoyed a power similar to that of the first Christian Roman Emperors. This meant that the Pope’s rule was illegal: if Henry wanted a divorce, he could have it, as long as the Archbishop of Canterbury agreed. The only problem now was that the Archbishop at the time, William Warham, didn’t agree.

Urged on by Cranmer, Henry began applying pressure to the bishops and archbishops in England. Henry then convinced Parliament to pass laws that ended the influence of the Pope in England, and appointed the King as the Supreme Head of the Church in England. This was the beginning of the Church of England, or the Anglican Church.

Henry was now able to confiscate land belonging to the Roman Catholic church. The most prized land belonged to the monasteries. When Henry ordered the monastic lands to be taken, he also dissolved the monasteries and destroyed the buildings to make sure they could not be used again.