Anglicanism

Anglicanism grew out of the Church of England after Henry VIII broke with Rome. Parliament's Act of Supremacy of 1534 made him Supreme Head of the Church. The church kept the bishops and much of the Catholic liturgy, but took its doctrine from the Reformation.

Under Edward VI, Thomas Cranmer wrote the Book of Common Prayer of 1549, the first service book wholly in English. Elizabeth I, who took the title Supreme Governor, restored it in 1559, and the Thirty-nine Articles, adopted in 1571, laid down a moderate Reformed doctrine.

The civil wars of the 1640s overthrew the church; after the Restoration of 1660 Puritan clergy were forced out, and the prayer book of 1662 became its standard. From Jamestown in 1607, English colonists carried Anglican worship overseas.