The break with Rome
The Tudors and the Stuarts1485 to 1714
Once king, Henry VIII broke England away from the authority of Rome and set up the Church of England as a separate national church, taking for himself the power to appoint bishops and decide how the whole country should worship, powers that had always belonged to the Pope before him.
One of Henry's wives paid for the new order he had built with her life. Anne Boleyn had given him a daughter, Elizabeth, but not the son he wanted; accused of taking lovers, she was executed at the Tower of London.
The faith that grew up outside Rome set itself apart from Catholic practice: it valued reading the Bible in their own language rather than Latin, left saints and shrines out of worship, and trusted a person's own relationship with God over obedience to church authority. Long after Henry's death, his daughter Elizabeth I restored the Church of England as the country's official church once more.
What to remember
 The founding of the Church of England | Henry VIII The Break with Rome: England left the Pope for a national church under the Crown. |
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| The restoration of the Church of England as the national church of England | Elizabeth I After Mary’s Catholic reign, Elizabeth restored the Protestant church but did not police private belief. |
| The new powers the king gained over the Church of England | the power to appoint bishops and set the rules of worship, powers that used to belong to the Pope Naming bishops and setting worship had been the Pope’s. Handing them to the king is what the break actually meant. |
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| The beliefs and worship of the Protestants | reading the Bible in their own language rather than Latin, not praying to saints or shrines, and valuing individual faith over obedience to the Church These three practices are the shorthand the test uses to distinguish Protestant belief from Catholic practice throughout this chapter. |
| The execution of Anne Boleyn | the Tower of London The second of the six wives, and the mother of Elizabeth I. |
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Everything in The Tudors and the Stuartsor the whole course, from the beginning