The Church was started because King Henry VIII was seeking a divorce and the Vatican refused to grant it. So the King created his own Church, which is also proved to be a clever patronage device. The King confiscated Catholic Church properties for both himself and his loyal allies. Meanwhile countless thousands who opposed them were sent to a grisly death.
There’s way more to it than that. This was during the Reformation, and the doctrine of the Anglicans differs little from that of the Lutherans, who lack the King Henry connection.
The had a Book of Common Prayer that was particularly inspiring. Has then put on the funeral pyre too?
Can't really disagree with what you wrote. It tracks with what I was taught going through confirmation class at age 12 in the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States in 1967. I would add just a few comments ...
1. John Wycliffe, 1330 – 1384, was an English Scholastic philosopher, theologian, lay preacher, translator, reformer and university teacher at Oxford in England, who was known as an early dissident in the Roman Catholic Church during the 14th century. His followers were known as Lollards, a somewhat rebellious movement, which preached anticlerical and biblically-centred reforms. The Lollard movement was a precursor to the Protestant Reformation, and for this reason, Wycliffe is sometimes called "The Morning Star of the Reformation". He was one of the earliest opponents of papal authority influencing secular power. Wycliffe was also an early advocate for translation of the Bible into the common language. He completed his translation directly from the Vulgate into vernacular English in the year 1382, now known as Wycliffe's Bible. It is probable that he personally translated the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and it is possible he translated the entire New Testament, while his associates translated the Old Testament.
2. The Reformation movement had already arrived on the shores of England by Henry VIII's time and Protestants had already worked their way into the ranks of his advisors. So, they mutually benefitted from his adultery - not the most auspicious way to start a church, but life is like that.
3. Thomas Cranmer, 1489 – 1556) was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build a favourable case for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon which resulted in the separation of the English Church from union with the Holy See. Along with Thomas Cromwell, he supported the principle of Royal Supremacy, in which the king was considered sovereign over the Church within his realm. When Edward came to the throne, Cranmer was able to promote major reforms. He wrote and compiled the first two editions of the Book of Common Prayer, a complete liturgy for the English Church. With the assistance of several Continental reformers to whom he gave refuge, he developed new doctrinal standards in areas such as the Eucharist, clerical celibacy, the role of images in places of worship, and the veneration of saints. Cranmer promulgated the new doctrines through the Prayer Book, the Homilies and other publications. After the accession of the Roman Catholic Mary I, Cranmer was put on trial for treason and heresy. Imprisoned for over two years and under pressure from Church authorities, he made several recantations and apparently reconciled himself with the Roman Catholic Church. However, on the day of his execution (burned at the stake), he withdrew his recantations, to die a heretic to Roman Catholics and a martyr for the principles of the English Reformation.
4. Mary I, 1516 – 1558) was Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death. Her brutal persecution of Protestants caused her opponents to give her the sobriquet "Bloody Mary". She was the only child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon who survived to adulthood. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547. When Edward became mortally ill in 1553, he attempted to remove Mary from the line of succession because of religious differences. On his death, their cousin Lady Jane Grey was at first proclaimed queen. Mary assembled a force in East Anglia and successfully deposed Jane, who was ultimately beheaded. In 1554, Mary married Philip of Spain, becoming queen consort of Habsburg Spain on his accession in 1556. As the fourth crowned monarch of the Tudor dynasty, Mary is remembered for her restoration of Roman Catholicism after the short-lived Protestant reign of her half-brother. During her five-year reign, she had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian Persecutions. Her re-establishment of Roman Catholicism was reversed after her death in 1558 by her younger half-sister and successor, Elizabeth I.
5. So, remind me how the Holy See decided that priests could not marry and have families and property?
6. So, remind me about that little episode of Johann Tetzel and indulgences ... and St. Peter's Basilica?
7. Matthew 7:3-5 3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
8. The current Church of England is a ghost of a church, and not very holy at that. Yes, it is the national church which means it receives taxpayer support. The U.K. is truly a post-Christian nation today. The recently retired Archbishop of Cnaterbury, Rowan, the "Rune-Druid-Ruin", Williams, pretty much wrecked the world-wide Anglican Communion with his inclusiveness of active homosexuals in all things Anglican.
A request which had never been refused a reigning monarch before, with France and Spain in the wings.
Not really that simple, after all.