Henry IX

I can't say whether it has any bearing or not, but one thing that certainly was a factor in the minds of monarchs when it came to the Reformation was the opportunity to make a quick buck...or rather, a quick million pounds. The Church was extremely well-endowed with land and money. It may not be ethical, but a lot of rulers were swayed by the chance to raise easy money - I believe that I recall that Henry VIII made something like £800,000 from Church land sales.

Wolsey had already done some dissolutions of monasteries before the divorce became an issue, so the precedent was there. And Henry does not have to formally break with Rome to cash in on church property, or for that matter to exercise a 'Gallican' sort of authority over the church. The papacy would be in a bind - can it afford to drive a theologically orthodox king into the Protestant camp just because he's being high handed?
 
By the mid 1520's Henry VIII had spent the bulk of the fortune he inherited from his father and was in desperate need for cash - the church was a useful target. Many of the great English monastic houses were also seeing a fall in numbers by the early 16th Century..there was also a significant strand of anti clericalism.
Early Lutheran reform had much to offer monarchs like Henry VIII - it offered them biblical authority for their growing absolutism and appealed to nationalism as it broke the link with Rome.
 
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