History of Religion in England
England has been inhabited for at least 500,000 years, with a sophisticated megalithic civilization arising in western England some 4,000 years ago. The great megaliths like Stonehenge date to this period.
That ancient civilization was replaced around 1,500 years later by Celtic tribes migrating from Western and continental Europe, mainly from France, collectively known as "Britons."
The Romans arrived with Julius Caesar's raid in 55 BC and Emperor Claudius' conquest in the following century. The southern part of the island became a prosperous part of the Roman Empire until early in the 5th century. Numerous Roman temples and other structures have been discovered across southern England that date to this period, and it was during this time (about 200 AD) that Christianity first arrived in England.
Germanic tribes arrived in the 5th and 6th centuries, enveloping the majority of modern day England in a new culture and language. These invaders and conquerors — the Saxons, Angles and Jutes — had followed Nordic pagan religions, which still leave traces in English Christian traditions to the present day.
Christianity became established in England in the 6th century with the mission of St. Augustine of Canterbury. Pope Gregory issued practical mandates concerning heathen temples: he desired that temples become consecrated to Christian service and asked Augustine to transform pagan practices, so far as possible, into dedication ceremonies or feasts of martyrs, since "he who would climb to a lofty height must go up by steps, not leaps" (To Mellitus, in Bede, i, 30).
The Reformation reached England shortly after the time of Luther, and religious reform coincided with King Henry VIII's politically-motivated break with the Roman Catholic Church in 1534.
The turmoil of the Reformation embroiled England in religious wars with Europe's Catholic powers, notably Spain, but the kingdom preserved its independence as much through luck as through the skill of charismatic rulers such as Elizabeth I. Elizabeth is also the one who oversaw the establishment of the general character of English Christianity as a via media (middle way) between Catholicism and Protestantism.
