AHC: Protestant Bavaria or Austria with a PoD after 1520

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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Have Bavaria or Austria or both become protestant and stay mainly protestant to the present day.

alternatively, make rhineland, belgium, Bohemia or piedmont or lombardy become protestant majority.
 
Austria *did* become Protestant, except for Tyrol. Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola were only won back for Catholicism at the beginning of the 17th century, and Upper and Lower Austria during the Thirty Years War. So that should be pretty easily accomplished.

For Bavaria, I'd say it's actually weirder that the Wittelsbachs stayed Catholic than anything else. By the 1560s or 1570s or so virtually every non-Habsburg secular prince in the Holy Roman Empire was a Lutheran or Calvinist. Bavaria was the only significant exception.
 
Austria *did* become Protestant, except for Tyrol. Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola were only won back for Catholicism at the beginning of the 17th century, and Upper and Lower Austria during the Thirty Years War. So that should be pretty easily accomplished.

For Bavaria, I'd say it's actually weirder that the Wittelsbachs stayed Catholic than anything else. By the 1560s or 1570s or so virtually every non-Habsburg secular prince in the Holy Roman Empire was a Lutheran or Calvinist. Bavaria was the only significant exception.

The fact that so many others went Protestant was probably the reason the Wittelsbachs stayed Catholic. The Emperor grew dependent on them. Because of this they achieved some nice successes in the 30-Years-War including getting elector status.
 
The fact that so many others went Protestant was probably the reason the Wittelsbachs stayed Catholic. The Emperor grew dependent on them. Because of this they achieved some nice successes in the 30-Years-War including getting elector status.

Funny enough, during the 18th century Bavaria tried to screw the Habsburgs every chance they got.
 
Best way is if the marriage of Philip of Burgundy to Juana of Castile never happens. As long as the Austrian Habsburgs were in line for the throne of Spain, they had to stay Catholic. Otherwise, there's no reason for them not to follow most of the other dynasties into Protestantism.

As for the Wittelsbachs, their Palatine branch did become Protestant. Had its Austrian neighbour done so, it's as likely as not that the Bavarian line would have followed suit.
 
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