Naughty Britons ever since the time of King Henry VIII haven't been very good about accepting that the Pope is boss of the world, of course.
To be fair, we weren't really all that great at accepting the Pope as boss of the world before Henry VIII, either. The Normans were pretty pro-Pope (mostly because a succession of Popes let them get way with all kinds of bullshit) but the Angevins and the Plantagenets... really, really not so much. Thomas Becket, anyone?
And before the Normans, the English church had married priests, a "whatever" attitude to working on Sundays and refused to sell indulgences because that's immoral.
Basically, we are not good at religion. The Welsh have a good go at it and the Scots can get very antsy about their invisible friend but the English? Mostly we're interested in beer and fighting. A judgemental God who doesn't like beer and fighting was never going to be a big hit here.