History Question?

Question

On what grounds did King Henry VIII claim the right to exercise authority as "Supreme Head of the Church of England?"

Answer 1

Henry had created the Church of England by renouncing papal authority. He had been given the title "Defender of the Faith " by the pope quite a bit earlier, and he used this designation to place himself at the head of the English church instead of someone such as the Archbishop of Canterbury. "Defender of the Faith" remains one of the titles of English monarchs to this day.
Of course, merely calling himself the head of the church would not have done Henry much good if he had not had the centralized power to enforce it and to subjugate the independent church bodies, particularly the monasteries.

Answer 2

Okay, Henry VIII was married 6 times. After his first marriage failed to produce a healthy male heir to the throne, he more or less began philandering more openly than he had before - I have my theories that he was adulterous throughout each of his marriages and that he had some bastard children running around. But anyway, since he didn't have a legitimate male heir he went to the Pope who had okayed the incestuous marriage to Catherine of Aragon. He told the Pope that he had been adulterous and that he wanted a divorce (or maybe a papal dispensation) from Catherine. This way he could marry Anne Boleyn. The Pope more or less told him no, which angered Henry. After that, Henry left the Church and formed his own Church to which he would be the head of. This is where Church and State meet. It really wasn't a right that he claimed, it was just his way of making sure that he could get a divorce from his wife(wives) without too much of a problem and that he would be able to legitimate heirs in the eyes of England - because really, if he was going to change his religious standing so did the rest of the country. After that I believe that he got excommunicated from the Roman Church because of this. To be honest Henry VIII was a brat, who was suffering from syphilis and desperately wanted a legitimate male heir.

Answer 3

I've heard that there was some statute (or possibly a precedent in common law) that claimed that the king was the highest earthly authority in England.

I suppose, however, given his well-known willfulness, that Henry wouldn't have needed anything but his own bravado to claim and hold the title.