The paper aims at giving a survey of the approaches practiced among specialists in social sciences who study ethnicity and nationalism at the contemporary stage of investigations. Further on, the author considers religious and political aspects of English nationalism at its moulding stage during the pre-revolutionary decades in the first half of the 17th century. The author believes that the extremes of primordialism and constructivism must be avoided in understanding ethnicity and nationalism when relying upon particular historical facts. Such an approach based on historical methodology gives the opportunity for deeper understanding of the peculiarities of formation of nationalism in Early Modern England as compared with purely sociological methods. The author shows that the rise of nationalist opinions in England during the first decades of the 17th century expressed itself in such a course of events when the Anglican Church created by the break with Rome in 1534 began to distance itself not only from the Catholic Church but also from the Protestant Churches on the continent of Europe thus acquiring its own identity.