I hope I won't offend anybody, however the Church of England has always been a strange hybrid. Henry VIII was the 'defender of the faith' and totally opposed to any kind of Reformation. When he split from Rome, it was for money and power, possibly more than for the love of Ann Boleyn - as he was able to take all the riches, the property and the land from the Catholic Church. Which he promptly put in his coffers or re-distributed to his friends to buy loyalty and more.
At school I learnt that the Anglican Church was Protestant, but it was immediately clear to me on arrival in the UK, as it is to any foreign tourist visiting a service at St Paul's or King's college Cambridge, or the many High churches all over the land, that it is nothing of the sort. A Catholic Church without the Pope is a more accurate description.