King Henry VIII had six wives, and he had two of them beheaded. His first wife took the easy way out, with a divorce. That royal divorce laid the groundwork for the Reformation in England.
Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, had failed to produce a son. In 1526, he fell in love with a woman named Anne Boleyn. He wanted to divorce Catherine, but Pope Clement VII would not permit it. Henry decided he didn’t need the pope's permission, so he named himself ruler of all religious activity in England. He closed the Catholic monasteries and took their wealth. He split away from the Catholic Church and Rome.
By the time Henry died, Bibles in England were written in English, not Latin. When Queen Elizabeth I, his daughter, took the throne, England officially became a Protestant nation in 1559.
