<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (April 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (April 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> The formal history of the Church of England is traditionally dated by the Church to the Gregorian mission to England by Saint Augustine of Canterbury in AD 597 . As a result of Augustine's mission, Christianity in England, from Anglican (English) perspective, came under the authority of the Pope . However, in 1534 King Henry VIII declared himself to be supreme head of the Church of England . This resulted in a schism with the Papacy . As a result of this schism, many non-Anglicans consider that the Church of England only existed from the 16th century Protestant Reformation . </P> <P> However, Christianity arrived in the British Isles around AD 47 during the Roman Empire according to Gildas's De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae . Archbishop Restitutus and others are known to have attended the council of Arles in 314 . Christianity developed roots in Sub-Roman Britain and later Ireland, Scotland, and Pictland . The Anglo - Saxons (Germanic pagans who progressively seized British territory) during the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries, established a small number of kingdoms and evangelisation of the Anglo - Saxons was carried out by the successors of the Gregorian mission and by Celtic missionaries from Scotland . The church in Wales remained isolated and was only brought within the jurisdiction of English bishops several centuries later . </P>

Who started the church of england and why