 Due to the island's strategic importance to the English crown, the islanders were able to negotiate, over a number of centuries, the right to retain privileges and improve on certain benefits, such as trade rights, from the King.During the 16th century, ideas of the reformation of the church coupled with the split with the Catholic Faith by Henry VIII of England, resulted in the islanders adopting the Protestant religion, in 1569 the churches moved under the control of the Diocese of Winchester.Calvinism in Jersey meant that life became very austere.