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 exchange for a royal pardon for what he called their illegal jurisdiction. He also demanded that the clergy should recognise him as their sole protector and supreme head. The church in England recognised Henry VIII as supreme head of the Church of England on 11 February 1531. Nonetheless, he continued to seek a compromise with the Pope, but negotiations (which had started in 1530 and ended in 1532) with the papal legate Antonio Giovanni da Burgio failed. Efforts by Henry to appeal to Jewish scholarship concerning the contours of levirate marriage were unavailing as well. In May 1532 the Church