English reformation

Sometimes circumstances can change rapidly. In the 1520s, an English translation of the Bible by William Tyndale had been deemed heresy. But by the late 1530s, with King Henry VIII's cataclysmic split from the Catholic church, having an English translation of the Bible became not only desirable but mandatory. Its introduction helped usher in a fertile period of English literature, with such luminaries as John Milton, John Bunyan, William Blake, Alfred Tennyson, and eventually William Shakespeare, and also helped fuse the English identity with the Protestant faith: