Initially prompted by a dispute over the annulment of the marriage of Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon, the Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534, and became the established church by an Act of Parliament in the Act of Supremacy, beginning a series of events known as the English Reformation. In the same year there was a Visitation of the Monasteries, ostensibly to examine their character, but in fact to value their assets with a view to expropriation. The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535, however, was an entirely candid valuation of the income of the monasteries. The Crown was undergoing financial difficulties, and the wealth of the church, allied to its political weakness, made appropriation of church property both tempting and feasible. Shrewsbury Abbey's income was assessed by the Valor at precisely £527 15s. 5¾d. Of this, £414 1s. 3¼d. was contributed by the temporalities; essentially, property rents drawn from estates in 26 manors of Shropshire and seven in other counties.