Every so often any Roman Catholic messageboard gets a visit from a well-meaning Protestant asking "why do you guys follow all those Pagan rites" -- and the members have to explain that, they don't. Anglicans don't get those. We get well-meaning Roman Catholics asking why we split from the Church, and we have to explain, we didn't. Both questions evoke the same level of frustration on the part of the people answering the question. So in that light...

Just a little bit about "the start of the English Church".

The English Church was started in the middle of first century to early in the second century. The Venerable Bede quotes a letter dated 153 making reference to an indiginous Christian Church. This was about a century and a half before the conversion of Constantine, before their was any hierarchy in Rome with any power or imperial connections to extend the influence of the Roman See over other jurisdictions. Oral history in the Isles is that the missionary who founded the church was sent by Saint John the Evangelist. Oral tradition from Lindisfarne is that the missionary in question was Saint Joseph of Arimethea. Either of these traditions would point to the date of the English Church's inception being no later than the latter half of the first century. By the time of the Council of Arles in 314 the English Church was sufficiently stable and had sufficient resources to send three bishops, a priest, and a deacon. This church also sent missionaries to Northern Europe to evangelize their Celtic cousins in those lands.

The Church in Britain thrived for centuries with its own usages and rites. When the Bishop of Rome was finally able to send missionaries to Britain in the fourth century, they found a Church already there. And they came into conflict with the British church, because the ancient usages and rites of that church weren't the Roman use. Probably, in fact, they were more ancient than the Roman use, since in the distant frontier Christians were protected by distance from imperial persecution and were able to practice their religion and celebrate their rites with relative security. The Roman missionaries, however, took the perspective that different was wrong and embarked on a campaign of coercion to bring the British Church into line with Rome.

In the seventh century, the Council of Whitby was called, where a majority of British Bishops agreed to adopt the Roman rite and Roman dating of Easter, for the sake of Christian unity. Bishops in the North dissented and retained the Celtic use. Religious houses were exempt from the ruling of Whitby, and also preserved the ancient Celtic use. And all the Bishops, whether they adopted the Roman liturgy or not, retained their ancient and historic independance.

In 1066, the Bishop of Rome resorted to force of arms to carry his influence into Britain, and sponsored William the Conqueror's invasion of Britain. In William's train came proper Roman clerics, who over the years of Plantagenet rule ousted the abbots and abbesses of the old Celtic religious houses, outlawed the old Celtic order of Canons, and gradually established Roman dominion in Britain. And it was not particularly welcome. Have you never wondered why fat, rich abbots featured so prominently among the Norman villians that were opposed by the Saxon Robin Hood? (Or don't children read Louis Rhead any more...)

In 1215, the Saxon barons rose up against their papally-sponsored hated Norman overlord, and forced King John to sign the Magna Carta that included the famous line "The Church in England always shall be free." Disestablishmentarians would argue that this declaration referred to the King's influence over the church, not to the Church's freedom from foreign influence. But in fact the King himself was a foreigner, and his affairs were so tangled in his relationship with Rome that there was very little difference between the two.

The House of Tudor gained the throne by marrying into the distaff Plantagenet line, but Henry VII also claimed descent from the Celtic kings, and based on that claim he was able to position himself as the people's King, rather than a foreigner. When his son had a falling out with the Bishop of Rome, three local English bishops were able to step up and remind Henry VIII of the English Church's historical independance. Henry's own Celtic and British roots were fuzzy at best, but he could see for himself the weakness of Rome's claim to authority over Britain.

In taking the power of the Pope to himself, Henry acted completely outside the tradition and temperament of the Celtic church. His illigitimatized-and-relegitimized-alternately-commoner-and-noble daughter Elizabeth, however, had a much stronger understanding of the people she ruled. She never reinstituted her father's Act of Supremacy that her Roman Catholic sister had revoked. Elizabeth's Act of Supremacy declares her NOT the "supreme head of the church" but rather "supreme governor of the realm" and makes very clear that no other person, no foreign power, no prelate from another See, has the right to wield power over Britons, temporally or spiritually.