The moment
After the pope refused to annul Henry VIII's marriage, Parliament's Act of Supremacy of November 1534 made the king Supreme Head of the Church of England. Henry dissolved the monasteries between 1536 and 1540 but kept Catholic doctrine, enforced by the Six Articles of 1539; Cranmer's English Prayer Book came only in 1549 under Edward VI, and Elizabeth I's settlement of 1559 gave the church its lasting shape.
People: Henry VIII, Thomas Cranmer, Elizabeth I