The English Reformation
- When
- 1534–1559 AD
- Where
- England
- Kind
- Reform
England separated from Rome under Henry VIII, then took a reformed doctrinal settlement under Edward VI and Elizabeth I while keeping bishops and liturgy.
Henry VIII broke with Rome over the annulment of his marriage, not over doctrine: the Act of Supremacy in 1534 made him head of the church in England while leaving its teaching largely as it was, and he burned Protestants and executed papal loyalists in roughly equal measure. The doctrinal reformation came under Edward VI, in Cranmer's prayer books of 1549 and 1552, was reversed under Mary, and was settled under Elizabeth in 1559 in a form deliberately broad enough to include as many of her subjects as possible. The dissolution of the monasteries transferred a fifth of the land in England, which gave a great many families a material stake in the settlement holding.
Bodies it bears on
Began here
Party to it
Who stands here
- Thomas Cranmer
1489–1556
Wrote the prayer books, and was burned under Mary
- William Tyndale
c. 1494–1536
Executed before it; his wording carried into the English Bible regardless
Either side of it
The whole timeline, from the apostolic communities to the present.