Quote:
Originally Posted by SaintessHeart
Illegitimate first, then Catholic. Apparently they don't like the Romans.
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by monster
If I'm not mistaken, the British king/queen is supposed to be head of the Church of England, so I can see why being a Catholic would not be appropriate.
|
It's a fair bit more complicated then that.
It started with
Henry VIII, the second monarch of the Tudor dynasty. He desperately needed a male heir to secure his family's rule and couldn't get the Pope to annul his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon. That eventually led to England's secession from the Catholic Church, allowing Henry VIII to divorce Catherine and marry Anne Boleyn (who, in any case, also failed to produce a son and was eventually executed for alleged treason).
The other reason was that Henry VIII needed a prodigious amount of funds to finance his wars in France, and a good deal of that money came from the seizure of monastic lands and possessions after England's separation from the Catholic Church.
Whatever the immediate reasons for the split, the long-term effect was that ordinary English became comfortable with being Protestant. It suited the nation's long-standing preference for independence from the European continent. This independent streak was further reinforced by the attempted invasion of England by the fervently Catholic Philip II of Spain, culminating in the disastrous loss of the Spanish Armada in 1588.
There's nothing like the threat of attack by a foreigner to boost nationalism at home. Protestantism became a badge of English pride and identity.