AHC: Church of England reunifies with Catholicism in 1678

So recently I was in Cambridge and I happened to see a memorial to the Catholic martyrs of the university who were killed during and after the Reformation. The dates given were 1535-1678; I presume the latter was simply the year of the execution of the last Cambridge martyr, since Catholicism remained illegal for over a century afterwards. But it did get me wondering whether there would be a way to make 1678 the year in which the Church of England reunified with the Catholic Church, no earlier and no later?
 
Domestically - James II tries to do this, alienates even more people than IOTL, and gets super deposed.

I really can't see a way to do this that doesn't involve invasion by an ultra-Catholic foreign power.
 
OK, here's a random idea:

  • There was in fact a mini-revival of Catholic-leaning worship and theology in the CofE in the early 17th century (enough for the Pope of the time to suspect that William Laud was a closet Catholic). So, have this revival be more widespread and influential (POD).
  • This leads to a strong reaction from the more Puritan-leaning members of the Church, who worry that the country is on a high road to Popery. Tensions rise, and you get something like OTL's Civil War going on, ending in the same way with King Charles being executed and a republican dictatorship being set up.
  • The new dictatorship is even more repressive and unpopular than Cromwell's IOTL, enough to replace Popery with Puritanism as the tyrannical bogeyman in the popular imagination. People start to idealise the "good old days" under Charles I, who is widely seen as a martyr to Puritan fanaticism.
  • Charles II (or *Charles II) is restored to the throne, and sets about undoing the reforms of the dictatorship. Everybody breathes a sigh of relief now that having fun is no longer a criminal offence.
  • Charles has secretly converted to Catholicism during his exile on the Continent, and wishes to bring his new kingdom back into the Catholic fold. He therefore opens negotiations with the Pope to come up with an agreement for doing so. Initially these negotiations are kept secret, but with the country as a whole now considering Puritanism a greater threat than Catholicism public opinion now poses less of an issue than IOTL, and with the CofE closer to Catholicism than IOTL there are fewer doctrinal difficulties to be resolved.
  • The agreement, when it finalised, ends up proposing a situation much like that prevailing in France, with the Pope recognised as the supreme authority but the King having more influence over the day-to-day running of the Church. For political reasons, the negotiations are presented as being initiated by the Pope, who, Charles' propaganda suggests, came begging England to return to the Catholic Church, rather than vice versa.
  • Even though the situation in England is more favourable for reunion than IOTL, it still causes controversy, with the country splitting into two factions of the issue: the Tories, who support reunion, and the Whigs, who oppose it. In the end, deft political manoeuvring on Charles' part, combined with the Whigs over-playing their hand and causing moderates to fear a return to the bad old days of civil war, enables the Act of Reunion (as it is known) to pass in 1678.
 
OK, here's a random idea:

  • There was in fact a mini-revival of Catholic-leaning worship and theology in the CofE in the early 17th century (enough for the Pope of the time to suspect that William Laud was a closet Catholic). So, have this revival be more widespread and influential (POD).
  • This leads to a strong reaction from the more Puritan-leaning members of the Church, who worry that the country is on a high road to Popery. Tensions rise, and you get something like OTL's Civil War going on, ending in the same way with King Charles being executed and a republican dictatorship being set up.
  • The new dictatorship is even more repressive and unpopular than Cromwell's IOTL, enough to replace Popery with Puritanism as the tyrannical bogeyman in the popular imagination. People start to idealise the "good old days" under Charles I, who is widely seen as a martyr to Puritan fanaticism.
  • Charles II (or *Charles II) is restored to the throne, and sets about undoing the reforms of the dictatorship. Everybody breathes a sigh of relief now that having fun is no longer a criminal offence.
  • Charles has secretly converted to Catholicism during his exile on the Continent, and wishes to bring his new kingdom back into the Catholic fold. He therefore opens negotiations with the Pope to come up with an agreement for doing so. Initially these negotiations are kept secret, but with the country as a whole now considering Puritanism a greater threat than Catholicism public opinion now poses less of an issue than IOTL, and with the CofE closer to Catholicism than IOTL there are fewer doctrinal difficulties to be resolved.
  • The agreement, when it finalised, ends up proposing a situation much like that prevailing in France, with the Pope recognised as the supreme authority but the King having more influence over the day-to-day running of the Church. For political reasons, the negotiations are presented as being initiated by the Pope, who, Charles' propaganda suggests, came begging England to return to the Catholic Church, rather than vice versa.
  • Even though the situation in England is more favourable for reunion than IOTL, it still causes controversy, with the country splitting into two factions of the issue: the Tories, who support reunion, and the Whigs, who oppose it. In the end, deft political manoeuvring on Charles' part, combined with the Whigs over-playing their hand and causing moderates to fear a return to the bad old days of civil war, enables the Act of Reunion (as it is known) to pass in 1678.

Of course, it should be mentioned that even after the Reunion there were many who thought it a bad idea, and for decades afterwards another schism was seen as a possibility, as indicated by St. Henry Sacheverell's 1709 sermon "The perils of false brethren", which attacked those who would see the Church in England abandon unity with the Papal See and become a Protestant sect.
 
The problem is, by the late seventeenth century, the ancestral bogeyman of Catholicism is simply too entrenched in the English mindset. It's not a binary between Catholicism and Puritanism - no matter how extreme the Civil War period is, there will always be non-Puritan Protestants who don't want a bar of that Evil Popery. Folk memories of Mary Tudor, the Spanish Armada, Guy Fawkes, and those evil evil French. Note also that England and Scotland are in personal union at this point - an England that returns to Catholicism is not getting along well with their northern neighbour.

I think you need a POD at least a hundred years earlier.
 
Well, in the Treaty of Dover in 1670 Charles promised to convert to Catholicism. He didn't keep his promise, but if he did England could've gone Catholic.
 
You'd need a substantial shift in opinion I think - the puritan sects in England in the early 17th century already considered the Church of England too close to Roman Catholicism - not fully reformed and clinging to the trappings backed by legal force - they would in any circumstances of reunion with Rome be bitterly opposed.
In terms of English Catholics well official figures are a bit difficult - however it is certain that in the late 17th century they were a minority - though perhaps not as small as some would believe before mass Irish immigration in the 19th century after the lifting of official restrictions allowed significant growth and a revival in English Catholicism
A reunion also has to take into account English (and later British) zenophobia which was an important strand of English Protestantism (some would say Tudor reform to religion was aided and abetted by a dislike of foreigners), it also has to take into account the fact that Catholicism in the late 17th Century was firmly linked to foreign absolutism again a significant political shift from the English and Scots political system.
 
The problem is, by the late seventeenth century, the ancestral bogeyman of Catholicism is simply too entrenched in the English mindset. It's not a binary between Catholicism and Puritanism - no matter how extreme the Civil War period is, there will always be non-Puritan Protestants who don't want a bar of that Evil Popery. Folk memories of Mary Tudor, the Spanish Armada, Guy Fawkes, and those evil evil French. Note also that England and Scotland are in personal union at this point - an England that returns to Catholicism is not getting along well with their northern neighbour.

I think you need a POD at least a hundred years earlier.

Maybe a more Catholic Elizabethan settlement? IOTL the idea of the Church of England as a "Catholic and Reformed" via media is largely a result of the Oxford Movement, but if Elizabeth ends up pushing a more conservative theology it could be part of the CofE's self-conception from the beginning.

Ask his brother how a Catholic King goes down with seventeenth century England.

To be fair, that was in a large part due to James' lack of political skills. When he first came to the throne people were, if not enthusiastic, at least not very hostile, as shown by the disappointing level of support for the Monmouth Rebellion.
 
Maybe a more Catholic Elizabethan settlement? IOTL the idea of the Church of England as a "Catholic and Reformed" via media is largely a result of the Oxford Movement, but if Elizabeth ends up pushing a more conservative theology it could be part of the CofE's self-conception from the beginning.

The problem is, the long-term trend over the course of Elizabeth's reign was to take the Church of England in a more Protestant direction. Once you hit 1588, at which point Catholics are getting derided as anti-English, does it really matter that the original 1558 settlement was more Catholic at the theological level? Politics ultimately triumphs.

To be fair, that was in a large part due to James' lack of political skills. When he first came to the throne people were, if not enthusiastic, at least not very hostile, as shown by the disappointing level of support for the Monmouth Rebellion.

Agreed about James being a muppet. My point was more that any Catholic monarch in England at this point needed to sleep with one eye open, given that the population as a whole was not about to shift over to Catholicism - a Catholic King doesn't make a Catholic country, and the country had fears that the King was going to impose his religion on them by force.
 
The problem is, the long-term trend over the course of Elizabeth's reign was to take the Church of England in a more Protestant direction. Once you hit 1588, at which point Catholics are getting derided as anti-English, does it really matter that the original 1558 settlement was more Catholic at the theological level? Politics ultimately triumphs.

I think it could make a difference. After all, there are a few cases IOTL of Eastern Orthodox Churches coming over to Rome, whereas I can't think of any real examples of Protestant Churches (as opposed to individual Protestants) doing the same. If you think "The Catholics are right about a lot of things, but the Pope is just another bishop", that's by no means a trivial objection, but it's much easier to overcome than "The Catholics are wrong about almost everything, the Church has been corrupt and heretical since the fourth century, and Rome is the seat of the Antichrist."
 
A Royalist victory in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms might cause a mass flight of Puritans and other hardline protestants to Germany/the UP/the New World, shifting the "religious Overton window" towards Catholicism and turning this from "impossible" to "highly unlikely".
 
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