There are really two questions here. First, was the dissolution of the monasteries an anti-religious policy? And second, why was there apparently so little resistance to the dissolution?

On the first question, no, it was not an anti-religious policy. There is a long history of conflict between the Pope and secular rulers over who has authority to govern and ecclesiastical affairs. Admittedly, Henry's claim to be "Supreme Head" of the Church of England was a bit more than was generally claimed in these negotiations between Popes and secular rulers during the medieval era, but the Protestant Reformation had opened up whole new avenues to approach this question. I won't go into all of the theological arguments here, but suffice it to say that Henry and other Protestant rulers were not anti-church per se, but rather against the authority of the pope, whose authority they generally viewed as the source of corruption in the church.

The answer to the second question about resistance to Henry’s policies is a little more complicated. The simple answer is that Henry’s suppression of monasteries did in fact receive a significant amount of resistance in the beginning. The initial Suppression of Religious Houses Act of 1535 was framed as monastic reform, closing smaller religious houses which, according to the Act, had fallen into “sin, vicious, carnal and abominable living.” The monks and nuns of those religious houses would be transferred to larger ones where they would be subject to stricter observance of their vows. However, not everyone bought this explanation and as the dissolution continued and the assets of these religious houses seized, discontent grew, particularly in the north of England. This discontent led to the so-called Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 which sought to end the policy of dissolution. It was led by Robert Aske, supported by some of the northern nobility, and attracted somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 followers. This force greatly outnumbered that of the Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Shrewsbury who the king tasked with putting down the rebellion. Norfolk therefore decided to negotiate, promising pardons for all involved, a parliament to discuss the dissolution of monasteries to be held at York, and a pause on any further dissolutions until that parliament had met. Aske agreed and the rebellion disbanded. Henry did not follow through on these promises and instead arrested the rebellion’s leaders and had them executed. There was another small unsuccessful rebellion in 1537 led by Sir Francis Bigod, but this effectively marked the end of large-scale armed Catholic resistance to the Reformation in England.

Historians continue to debate the degree to which the English population accepted and resisted the Reformation. Some see the relatively short-lived armed resistance as a sign that the English population generally supported Henry’s reforms. Others note that resistance took other forms and happened on a more local scale. Alexandra Walsham, for example, has noted how Catholics persisted in their faith in the Elizabethan era by publicly conforming to the Church of England while practicing their Catholic faith privately, through reading Catholic devotional literature or maintaining private chapels. The North—the same region that rose in the Pilgrimage of Grace—remained a hotbed for these so-called “Church Papists.” So, acceptance of and resistance to religious reform was not a simple matter for people living through these momentous religious changes, and one should not see the end of armed resistance as a wholesale acceptance of a state’s religious policies.