Religious conflict began with King Henry VIII's departure from the Catholic Church
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Today, the subject of which prayer book should be used might seem an unlikely subject to provoke serious rioting and upheaval. In the mid-16th century, however, it was a different story.
England had been in a state of religious turmoil ever since King Henry VIII had fallen out with the Pope over the second Tudor King’s desire to end his marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. The result had been that Henry had broken with Rome entirely and declared himself the head of a new Church of England. The C of E followed the Protestant tradition established by the German, Martin Luther who had rebelled against the Catholic church himself, precipitating what is known as the Reformation. We don’t really have the space to go into the reasons why exactly this happened now, but needless to say this is basically the reason why we have C of E as well as Catholic churches today, instead of one united Christian one.