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Why did Oxford movement leaders argue that the Church of England was independent from the state?

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St. John Henry Newman English prelate, theologian, and poet John Henry Newman converted to Roman Catholicism in 1845. He was made a cardinal in 1879.

Leaders of the Oxford movement argued that the Church of England was independent of the state primarily as a response to political shifts between 1828 and 1832. During this period, the repeal of laws requiring government officials to receive the Lord’s Supper within the Anglican church, alongside the removal of restrictions on Roman Catholics, created fears that the church might be disestablished and lose its endowments.1

To counter this, movement leaders asserted that the church’s authority was not derived from the state but from its commitment to teaching Christian truth and the fact that its bishops stood in the apostolic succession—an unbroken line of authority tracing back to the Apostles. By emphasizing this historical and spiritual identity, they sought to defend the church as a truly "catholic" institution, independent of secular political control.1