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
Acts of Supremacy monarch as head of the Church and state. Anyone refusing to take the oath could be charged with treason. The use of the term Supreme Governor as opposed to Supreme Head pacified some Roman Catholics and those Protestants concerned about a female leader of the Church of England. Elizabeth, who was a politique, did not prosecute layman nonconformists, or those who did not follow the established rules of the Church of England unless their actions directly undermined the authority of the English monarch, as was the case in the vestments controversy. Thus, it was through the Second Act of Supremacy