which monarch separated england from the catholic church
History of the Church of England The English Reformation was initially driven by the dynastic goals of Henry VIII, who, in his quest for a consort who would bear him a male heir, found it expedient to replace papal authority with the supremacy of the English crown. The early legislation focused primarily on questions of temporal and spiritual supremacy. The Institution of the Christian Man (also called The Bishops' Book) of 1537 was written by a committee of 46 divines and bishops headed by Thomas Cranmer. The purpose of the work, along with the Ten Articles of the previous year, was to implement the reforms of Henry VIII in separating from the Roman Catholic Church and reforming the Ecclesia Anglicana.[b] "The work was a noble endeavor on the part of the bishops to promote unity, and to instruct the people in Church doctrine."[9] The introduction of the Great Bible in 1538 brought a vernacular translation of the Scriptures into churches. The Dissolution of the Monasteries and the seizure of their assets by 1540 brought huge amounts of church land and property under the jurisdiction of the Crown, and ultimately into the hands of the English nobility. This simultaneously removed the greatest centres of loyalty to the pope and created vested interests which made a powerful material incentive to support a separate Christian church in England under the rule of the Crown.