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Henry-VIII

Henry VIII, King of England by Hans Holiban the younger

Henry VIII was king of England from 1509 to 1547. In 1521, with the assistance of Thomas Moore, he wrote The Defence of the Seven Sacraments, which defended the papacy and the Roman Catholic Church from Martin Luther's 95 theses and On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church. Pope Leo X awarded King Henry the title "Defender of the Faith" for this action.

King Henry later fell into a dispute with Pope Clement VII when the pope refused to grant him a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, his first wife. Clement excommunicated Henry. The British Parliament responded by passing the Act of Supremacy of 1534, declaring that the King was "the only Supreme Head in Earth of the Church of England" and effectively separating the Anglican Church from the Roman Catholic Church.

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