Читать книгу Anglo-American Cultural Studies - Jody Skinner - Страница 82

monarch as Head of Church – and three men named ThomasThe easy answer: the monarch. EnglandEngland had changed from a RomanRoman CatholicRoman Catholic country to a country whose monarch became the head of his own church. One of the most prominent victims of this change was a Thomas, the renowned philosopher and statesman and author of Utopia Sir Thomas More, who was beheaded when he refused to sign the Act that would make Henry VIIIHenry VIII Supreme [62]Head of the Church in England. Henry rewarded those who supported him by granting them much of the property and goods he and his minister, another Thomas, this one named Cromwell, had confiscated from the monasteries. The Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy,Act of Supremacy which then regulated the powerpower struggle between Church and State that had begun with one bishop being murdered in the Cathedral (as we saw with Henry IIHenry II and an earlier famous Thomas, this one with the last name BecketBecket, Thomas) and ended with many more executions 350 years later.