House of Tudor the Tower of London saved him from the public humiliation and inevitable execution he would have suffered upon his arrival at the Tower. In order to allow Henry to divorce his wife and marry Anne Boleyn, the English parliament enacted laws breaking ties with Rome, and declaring the king Supreme Head of the Church of England (from Elizabeth I the monarch is known as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England), thus severing the ecclesiastical structure of England from the Catholic Church and the Pope. The newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, was then able to declare Henry's
History of the Church of England right of all appeals to Rome, effectively ending the Pope's influence. The first Act of Supremacy confirmed Henry by statute as the "Supreme Head of the Church of England" in 1536. (Due to clergy objections the contentious term "Supreme Head" for the monarch later became "Supreme Governor of the Church of England" – which is the title held by the reigning monarch to the present.) Such constitutional changes made it not only possible for Henry to have his marriage annulled but also gave him access to the considerable wealth that the Church had amassed. Thomas Cromwell, as Vicar General, launched