It was a most peculiar situation: the Church of England was the same Institution in unbroken succession but with a modified face to the world. It was without much of a particular character of its own until the notion of Anglicanism as distinct Via Media between Catholicism and Protesantism emerged very late in her reign and more clearly during the reigns of the early Stuart Kings. Indeed the term Via Media only first appears as such early in the reign of Charles I. The Church of England was established church (constitutionally established by the state with the Head of State as its supreme governor). The exact nature of the relationship between church and state would be a source of continued friction into the next century.