How did Henry VIII make Himself head of the Church of England?
How he did it was pretty simple: he declared himself so. How he followed up is a bit messier, but he essentially began a crusade of anti-Catholic persecution, seizing monasteries and confiscating their land and wealth -which was admittedly considerable, in some cases- and finally declaring that failure to acknowledge him as supreme earthly head of the Church in England was an act of treason: essentially, if you remained a Catholic you were liable to have your head cut off. After the fact, Henry and the new Church of England came up with a few other rationalizations for what they did, but as the first poster says, wanting a divorce was the original and real reason, as Catherine of Aragon seemed incapable of producing a son and heir to the throne. This lack of an heir continued to trouble Henry, and even his own Church was a little unconfortable with serial divorces, so he found a new remedy — beheading. Between divorces and beheadings, you can go through six wives pretty quickly.
