Why did henry VIII dissolve the monasteries?
King Henry VIII wanted to break with the Catholic Church, and create a new Protestant form of Christian worship. This meant that Catholic practices had to be abandoned, including monasticism. Of course, there was also an enormous economic incentive to dissolve the monasteries — they were the single largest landowners in the country. They had been collecting property for nearly a thousand years in some parts of the kingdom; by declaring himself Head of the Anglican Church, all of that land immediately became the property of Henry! He could sell it to those who had supported the break with Rome, or he could just enjoy the profits the monasteries had previously raked in. It was win-win, for him.
