Other than that, I would agree with your general point that overly much is made of Henry’s relations with Rome without putting them in the historical context of a long and bitter feud between the secular and spiritual power in England. Indeed, in the grand narrative of religion and power in England, Elizabeth is by far the more significant player.

Although I think what does matter about Henry was his legalistic pursuit of what he assumed was his right (both in the case of the Divorce, but also in the case of the Break, and indeed the subsequent divorce of Anne Boleyn). Rather than assert his power nakedly, Henry was obsessed with acquiring legal sanction – not a habit which has particually bothered his predecessors. He could have just had Catherine killed seemingly accidentally (might have caused war, but hardly less problematic than what he did do), as he might have done with Anne. The desire to do things through the law made Henry’s disputes not just a written argument, but one which drew in huge numbers of people in an increasingly (relative to the immediate past) literate age, and created a whole constitunency of people who had an interest in and knowledge of the religio-political nature of the state, which in turn bred the religious controversies of the Stuart period, and in turn the political arguments about liberty and right.