The Church of England is the established church in England. Its origins lie in the English Reformation: King Henry VIII broke with Rome in the 1530s after the Pope refused to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, leading to the Act of Supremacy in 1534 which made the monarch the head of the Church.
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Today the monarch is the Supreme Governor and the Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop. The Church of England is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Twenty-six of its bishops sit in the House of Lords as the Lords Spiritual; one of the few countries to grant clergy a guaranteed seat in its parliament.
You may be asked who founded the Church of England (Henry VIII), which year the Act of Supremacy was passed, or which church the monarch is the Supreme Governor of.
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