After Henry VIII passed the Act of Supremacy, and the Pope excommunicated Henry all of England, Henry was threatened by the rebellions that had come along with the Protestant Reformation that had been sweeping Europe, especially in the Germanic states northeast of England. King Henry still was a devout Catholic in his beliefs, and he broke away from the Pope mainly for the benefit of England and himself. So as he rejected the Lutheran reforms that was so fervently called for by the Protestants in England, he instituted the Act of the Six Articles, amongst other things, which upheld quite a number of Catholic practices. This brought anger to the Lutherans and Calvinists in England who had thought they were finally going to get some religious equality action, and rebellion came along. But as far as action from the Catholic Church goes, excommunication was the only leverage that the Pope had, and used. So internal altercations were the ones Henry had to deal with as far as in a militarism sense.