Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Thirty-nine Articles were initiated by the Convocation of 1563 under the direction of Matthew Parker, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The document was finalized and ratified by Queen Elizabeth I in 1571 after Article 29 was re-inserted following her excommunication by Pope Pius V in 1570.
Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and a small group of fellow Protestants drafted the Forty-two Articles which served as the basis for the Thirty-nine Articles. The theology of the articles has been described by some as restrained Calvinism while others point to a much stronger Lutheran influence, particularly in the doctrine of justification by faith.
In the Church of England, only clergy are required to subscribe to the Articles while students at Oxford University were expected to sign them until the passing of the Oxford University Act 1854. The articles are printed in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and remain a confession of faith for the Anglican tradition despite not being officially normative in all 44 member churches of the Anglican Communion.
The process involved a reduction from the Forty-two Articles to thirty-nine, with Elizabeth personally throwing out Article 29 to avoid offending her subjects with Catholic leanings. The Forty-two Articles were issued by Royal Mandate on the 19th of June 1553 but were never put into action before Edward VI died in 1553.
The articles reject the medieval Catholic teachings on works of supererogation and that performing good works can make a person worthy to receive justification. They also reject the radical Protestant teaching that a person could be free from sin in this life while stating that Holy Scripture contains everything necessary for salvation.
Article 29 was re-inserted in 1571 despite the opposition of Bishop Edmund Gheast following the queen's excommunication by Pope Pius V in 1570. The article declares that the wicked do not eat the Body of Christ and was added to finalize the document after Elizabeth I had initially removed it to avoid offending Catholic-leaning subjects.