The break with Rome was carried out by statute, in sequence, over about five years, and the sequence is the clearest way to describe it.
It began with a marriage suit. From 1527 Henry sought from Rome an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, on the argument that it had been unlawful from the start because she had been his brother's widow. The case ran for six years without resolution, complicated by the fact that Catherine's nephew was the emperor Charles V, whose troops had sacked Rome in 1527.
Parliament then supplied what Rome would not. The Act in Restraint of Appeals of 1533 declared England an empire whose spiritual and temporal jurisdiction was complete in itself and forbade appeals to Rome, which allowed Thomas Cranmer, newly archbishop, to hear the case and pronounce the marriage void. The Act of Supremacy of 1534 declared the king to be the only Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England and annexed to the crown the authority to correct errors and heresies. A Treasons Act made it capital to deny the royal titles.
Refusal was tested at once. Thomas More, formerly Lord Chancellor, and John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, declined the oath and were executed in 1535, as were a number of Carthusian monks. The atlas records the statutes and their enforcement, which are the historical substance; it does not offer a verdict on the king.