The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St. Augustine of Canterbury in AD 597^{[citation needed]}.

As a result of Augustine's mission, the church in England became an integral part of the Roman Catholic Church and acknowledged the authority of the Pope^{[citation needed]}. Initially prompted by a dispute over the annulment of the marriage of Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon, the Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534 and became the established church by an Act of Parliament in the Act of Supremacy, beginning a series of events known as the English Reformation. During the reign of Queen Mary, the Church was fully restored under Rome in 1555. Papal authority was again explicitly rejected after the accession of Queen Elizabeth when the Act of Supremacy of 1558 was passed. Both Catholic and Reformed factions vied for determining the doctrines and worship of the church. This ended with the 1558 Elizabethan settlement, which developed the understanding that the church was to be both Catholic and Reformed:

England ⁱ/ˈɪŋɡlənd/ is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, while the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separate it from continental Europe. Most of England comprises the central and southern part of the island of Great Britain in the North Atlantic. The country also includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Palaeolithic period, but it takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in AD 927, and since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world. The English language, the Anglican Church, and English law—the basis for the common law legal systems of many other countries around the world—developed in England, and the country's parliamentary system of government has been widely adopted by other nations. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. England's Royal Society laid the foundations of modern experimental science.

Edward John "Eddie" Izzard (born 7 February 1962) is an English stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. His comedy style takes the form of rambling, whimsical monologue and self-referential pantomime. He had a starring role in the television series The Riches as Wayne Malloy and has appeared in many motion pictures such as Ocean's Twelve, Ocean's Thirteen, Mystery Men, Shadow of the Vampire, The Cat's Meow, Across the Universe, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and Valkyrie. He is also the voice of Nigel in the 2006 animated film The Wild and Miles Axlerod in the 2011 Disney/Pixar animated film Cars 2.

He has cited his main comedy role model as Monty Python, and John Cleese once referred to him as the "Lost Python". In 2009, he completed 43 marathons in 51 days for Sport Relief in spite of having no prior history of long distance running. He is also known for his transvestism. He has won numerous awards including a Primetime Emmy Award for Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program for his comedy special Dress to Kill, in 2000. Izzard's web site won the Yahoo People's Choice Award and earned the Webby Award.

Rowan Douglas Williams FBA, FRSL, FLSW (born 14 June 1950) is an Anglican bishop, poet and theologian. He is the 104th and current Archbishop of Canterbury, Metropolitan of the Province of Canterbury and Primate of All England, offices he has held since early 2003.

Williams was previously Bishop of Monmouth and Archbishop of Wales (making him the first Archbishop of Canterbury in modern times not to be appointed from within the Church of England) and had spent much of his earlier career as an academic at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford successively. His primacy has been marked by much speculation that the Anglican Communion (in which the Archbishop of Canterbury is the leading figure) is on the verge of fragmentation and by Williams's attempts to keep all sides talking to one another. On 16 March 2012, it was announced that he has accepted the position of Master of Magdalene College at Cambridge University, beginning in January 2013. He is expected to stand down as Archbishop of Canterbury in December 2012.

Melanie Phillips (born 4 June 1951) is a British journalist and author. She started on the left of the political spectrum, writing for The Guardian and New Statesman. In the 1990s she moved to the right, and she currently writes for the Daily Mail, covering political and social issues from a conservative perspective. She defines herself as a liberal who has "been mugged by reality".

Phillips has often appeared as a panelist on the BBC Radio 4 programme The Moral Maze and BBC One's Question Time. She has written a number of books, including most recently World Turned Upside Down. She was awarded the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 1996, while working at The Observer.

Phillips' family was Jewish. Her father was a dress salesman and her mother ran a children's clothes shop. Both parents were committed Labour voters. She was educated at Putney High School, a girls' independent school in Putney, London, and later read English at St Anne's College, Oxford.

Phillips trained as a journalist on the Evening Echo, a local newspaper in Hemel Hempstead, as her probationary period in the provinces, then compulsory for the profession. After winning the Young Journalist of the Year award in 1976, she spent a short period at the New Society magazine, before joining The Guardian newspaper in 1977 and becoming its social services correspondent and social policy leader writer.