Until he entered his middle years Henry VIII (b. However the long years in which spiritual and temporal power hand lain in the hands of Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey, Lord Chancellor of England, Archbishop of York, and Papal Legate had taught him the advantages of bringing the wealth and power of the Church under national control. It was therefore not surprising that when the Papacy rejected Henry's claims for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon he should being to see 'nationalising' the Church as a quick way of not only resolving his marital difficulties, but of increasing his power and the security of the monarchy. However, Henry was no Protestant. Even after he ended the Church of England's links to the Papacy he remained a convinced Catholic to almost the end of his life. His break with Rome secured for the monarchy the sort of relationship with the Church that the Kings of Spain and of France had achieved by less dramatic actions. Henry's reformation did not materially alter the way in which people worshipped, but it provide a breathing space for the principles of the English Reformation to evolve. .
Henry VIII's first overt act against the Papacy came in 1532 when he caused legislation to be introduced in Parliament to end the payment of church taxes to Rome, and prevent appeals out of England in Ecclesiastical cases. This unsuccessful attempt to pressure the pope into granting an annulment was followed by the Act of Supremacy that made Henry 'supreme head, under Christ, of the Church of England'. The Convocations reluctantly agreed to the change, and shortly afterwards William Wareham, Archbishop of Canterbury died and was replaced by Thomas Cranmer, a scholar with sympathies for the Lutheran Reformation. Cranmer is, in some ways, an mysterious figure. Born in Aslockton, Notts, into a minor gentry family, he was educated at Cambridge, married, was widowed, ordained, and re-entered academic life.
