The English Reformation: Henry VIII's Act of Supremacy

Date

1534

Category

Politics & governance

Region

England

Era

Early Modern

Significance

In 1534 the English Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy, declaring King Henry VIII to be the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England and severing the kingdom's ecclesiastical ties with Rome.

The break originated in Henry's quest to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which Pope Clement VII refused, but it created a national church under royal rather than papal control. An accompanying Treasons Act made it a capital offence to deny the king's supremacy, leading to executions including those of Thomas More and John Fisher. From 1536 the Crown dissolved the monasteries, seizing vast Church lands and wealth and redistributing them to the gentry, which reshaped English society, landholding and politics. Although Henry retained much Catholic doctrine and ritual, his break with Rome opened England to Protestant influence and set in motion decades of religious upheaval under his successors. The English Reformation permanently altered the relationship between church, crown and nation and made the monarch the head of an established national church.

Empires active in 1534

• Songhai Empire
  1464 CE – 1591 CE
• Ming Dynasty
  1368 CE – 1644 CE
• Ottoman Empire
  1299 CE – 1922 CE
• Solomonic dynasty
  1270 CE – 1974 CE
• Mughal Empire
  1526 CE – 1857 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE

Related politics & governance events

• Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years' War
  October 1648
• The New Laws and the debate over the encomienda
  20 November 1542
• Suleiman the Magnificent and the codification of Ottoman law
  1520–1566 (reign of Suleiman)
• Selim I conquers the Mamluk Sultanate and the holy cities
  January 1517
• The Peace of Augsburg
  25 September 1555
• Akbar's religious tolerance and administrative reforms
  1564 (jizya abolished); 1582 (Din-i Ilahi)

Further reading

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

The wider story

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

Roger Crowley

Fast-paced narrative of Portugal's seaborne empire.

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