From introduction: "To understand adequately the character of the Oxford Movement (Tractarianism) and its perception of the American Church, we need first to look back to the chan¬ges to the Church and State structure advanced by the English Reformation. Even though it was an enduring political tendency in medieval England to minimize the power of the pope over the rulers, it was Henry VIII (1509–1547) who first announced the full independence of the Crown and the English Church from the bishop of Rome."(...)