What led King Henry VIII of England to defy the Catholic church?

King Henry VIII asked the Pope for a divorce form his first wife, Catherine or Aragon, so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. When the Pope refused, Henry broke away from the Catholic Church, divorced Catherine, and formed the Church of England.

Henry didn't challenge the Catholic Church, he simply took a stand on a principle that had been discussed for some 1500 years. That is the question of the Pope's authority, where did the magisterium , or authority, lie within the Catholic Church, the Body of Christ here on earth.

In the early Church authority had been passed from the apostles to the college of bishops, for five hundred years the road had been clear, but slowly over the last centuries, authority had ben slipping in to the hands of the papacy?

Was it genuine? For two or three hundred years it had been discussed acutely, in General Councils and Colleges all over Europe. Henry had made his point that in his opinion, the canons of the Ecumenical Councils,[Nice 6,] still held good. He believed in the Ecumenical Councils when he and the English Church made their point that ," "The Bishop of Rome hath not by Scripture any greater authority over the Church of England than any other Bishop."

That was the challenge posed to the Catholic Church by Henry and the Church in England, was the Church in Western Europe to be abandoned to the medieval accretions seized on and promoted by the papacy, or were the old ways of the apostolic age to be preserved for posterity?