Expert: Mark Smith - 6/19/2010

Question
I am still confused as to the religion of England.  After henry the 8th split with Rome exactly what was the religion of England and why exactly were so many people tortured and executed.

Answer
Hello Joanne.
It is a very confusing period in English history. Although Henry VIII established the Church of England it was not in its early days a Protestant Church. It was more of a political move than a religious one, Henry became Head of the Chuch in England supplanting, the Pope but many aspects of European Protestantism were rejected. It was a sort of halfway house on the road to Protestantism which came about during the reign of Henry's son Edward VI in the late 1540s/early 1550s.
The executions and imprisonments etc were again mainly political. By refusing to swear allegiance to the new political-religious establishment was treason and a number of people, both famous and not so famous were executed, not specifically for refusing to embrace the new regime, but for treason. It was not a crime to be a Catholic during the latter years of Henry's reign, but it was a capital crime to refuse to acknowledge him as Head of the Church of England or to recognise his daughter Elizabeth as his legitimate child.
Mark