"Anglicanism had been around long before Henry VIII- it goes back to the martyrdom of St Alban in 303 and includes St Patrick, St Bede the Venerable, St Edward the Confessor and St Anselm."
If you have some historical sources you can cite as evidence, I would be very interested. Do St. Alban, St. Patrick and St. Bede talk about their "Anglicanism"? I'm pretty sure Church Fathers refer to the Catholic Church as early as 105 A.D.,from what I have found by my research. Anglicans prior to Henry VIII??? Now that is a new one I have never heard before.
Please don't tell any Irish Catholics that St. Patrick was an Anglican, OK?
He was born in England, kidnapped by the Irish, escaped, and returned there to preach the Gospel. His followers evangelized europe, in spite of Gregory's attempts to stop them. You are the one who mistakenly believes that Rome has authority to alter scripture.
Well, one of the major historical sources of early Anglicanism comes from St Bede himself. Many features of Anglican Christianity come from the pre-Tudor years. One of the most obvious examples is the Celtic Cross. Another is the liturgy itself. Cranmer's 1549 BCP liturgy is essentially an English translation of the Sarum (Latin for Salisbury) Rites.
The concept of the "Roman Catholic Church" really only dates back to the Council of Trent and the Counter-Reformation. Prior to that, the institutional church in western Europe was simply known as the "Western Church". As you may know, "catholic" means "universal". When the Nicene Fathers wrote "One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church" in the Creed, I seriously doubt they were referring specifically to the see of the Bishop of Rome.