AHC: Biggest possible English Recusant population

Recusants were English Catholics who refused to attend services of the established Church of England during the reign of Elizabeth I onwards. With a POD any time after the accession of Elizabeth I, get the biggest possible Recusant population in England.
 
Any thoughts?

I was thinking maybe a less stringent Act of Uniformity (1558). IOTL it fined everybody who didn't attend an Anglican service; ITTL maybe she could decide that this risks inciting rebellion, and instead the provisions only apply to the gentry (under the assumption that, if the gentry are all on-side, the peasants will follow, or at least be unable to cause any trouble). This might result in a situation a bit like Ireland IOTL, where the upper class are mostly Protestants and the lower classes are mostly Catholic.
 
Yes that might do it, although of course those aristocratic families who remain Catholic will be a major factor in its retention. I presume by lower classe you mean mainly the rural lower classes, since towns and cities will probably be strrongholds of Protestantism, both among merchants and among skilled craftsmen.

Other things which might boost the number of recusants:
  • Failure to translate the Bible into Welsh. The Welsh population are not impressed by having to go to church and listen to preaching and liturgy in English, and remains largely Catholic.
  • Walsingham's network of spies and informers is much less efficient, and a lot more priests manage to evade the authorities, and
  • Those priests that do remain, get through, instead of largely ministering to the gentry, spend a lot more time 'in the field' ministering to the peasantry, especially in remoter rural areas.
 
  • Those priests that do remain, get through, instead of largely ministering to the gentry, spend a lot more time 'in the field' ministering to the peasantry, especially in remoter rural areas.

I think that would naturally result from the POD I suggested -- the more important rural areas are as strongholds of Catholicism, the more demand there will be for priests in those areas, and consequently the more priests will go to those places.
 
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