AHC: Protestant France and Spain

Don Quijote

Banned
With a POD of 1485, can France become 80%+ Protestant and Spain 50%+ Protestant by 1600? I chose 1485 because I'm hoping that the Anglo-Spanish alliance under Henry VII would survive for longer with increased links between the two countries and hopefully the spread of the Reformation. However I'm not sure if many of the Spanish royalty would convert, so this might need some sort of union under an English king. In France it would help if Henry IV stayed Protestant, and any French conquests in Germany would lead to them taking over Protestant subjects. Presumably there would no Inquisition in Spain.
 
Interestingly, if you'd want an Anglo-Spanish alliance lasting longer, it would be far more plausible for England to stay Catholic, rather than having Spain become Protestant, considering how much back-and-forth happened in England. Also, since the Habsburgs had such a close relationship with the Papacy, it would be highly unlikely that a Church of Spain would develop and split off from Rome. I guess if you were truly hell bent on having a Protestant Spain, you could have the de Trastamara dynasty remain in power and not get involved with the Habsburgs, (maybe if Johanna the Mad were born a boy?) and if Aragonese interests in Italy started souring relations with the Pope, then perhaps Spain would have indeed became Protestant.

Protestant France, on the other hand, is a much easier task. Heck, if the Wars of Religion went another way, a Protestant France could possibly have been in the cards (possibly. Not probably. :D )

Granted, there are major geopolitical concerns as to why an Anglo-Spanish alliance would've encountered at some point. Of course both parties were heavily invested in the idea of containing France, but both were also major colonial powers in the Atlantic world. So the alliance isn't impossible, but you'd need to figure out a way for the two to work that out.
 
Protestant Spain isn't all that hard. Let Juana keep her throne and her sanity, and Reformation happens.

"Already in 1495 Joanna showed signs of religious skepticism and little devotion to worship and Christian rites. This alarmed her mother, who ordered it to be kept secret."

"As a young woman, she was known to be highly intelligent. It was only after her marriage that the first suspicions of mental illness arose. One reason for this may be due to the sympathy she showed for Martin Luther's ideas."
 
Spain and the sources .

The problem with Spain becoming one of the reformed countries is that regret is that the national church had been previously subject to disciplinary reform and was under the firm control of the Spanish monarchs, with great autonomy from Rome .. Remember also that the Catholic loyalty did not prevent them politically oppose the papacy ... remember that the Emperor Charles V, was the one who ordered the sack of Rome.

Regarding England still was not a colonial power, and it was not inevitable his clash with Spain... If England remains Catholic or perhaps an alternative Spain did not interest him too the religion of its partners.

France... the more likely your state solution as it became such a percentage to Protestantism... because the support of Spain to the French Catholic party had that goal ...

The seriously prevent Spain is interested in European affairs and instead is concentrated in North Africa ... maybe this alternative Spain have been formed with the union of Castile with Portugal instead with Aragón, as in OTL.





Protestant Spain isn't all that hard. Let Juana keep her throne and her sanity, and Reformation happens.


? said:
"Already in 1495 Joanna showed signs of religious skepticism and little devotion to worship and Christian rites. This alarmed her mother, who ordered it to be kept secret."


? said:
"As a young woman, she was known to be highly intelligent. It was only after her marriage that the first suspicions of mental illness arose. One reason for this may be due to the sympathy she showed for Martin Luther's ideas."



Your quotations are quite counterintuitive and subject to interpretation... so I would appreciate if you can identify the source / s that you are quoting to evaluate them.
 
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Don Quijote

Banned
I'm sorry I don't know a whole lot about Juana/Joanna, but would a lasting (or even temporary) union of the English and Spanish crowns be possible? Maybe at the succession crisis when Isabella died the Spanish throne could be offered to Henry VII's second son Henry, and in TTL Arthur would survive to become English king. Of course Henry VIII did marry Catherine of Aragon in OTL, so at least Aragon might go to him, if not Castille. With Henry at the helm Aragon, and possibly all of Spain, would have a much rougher relationship with the Pope.
 
Protestant Spain isn't all that hard. Let Juana keep her throne and her sanity, and Reformation happens.

How ? There is no causality at all between Joan and protestantism.

The idea of Spain having the least possibility of turning protestant is quite paradoxical, given the fact that Spain fought and rejected Islam that shared common points with protestantism, such as iconoclasm.

There are places where protestantism just can't win :
- Italy because it earned enormous profit from the papacy being in Italy,
- Spain and Portugal because of the reconquista,
- Ireland because the oppressed irish had nothing else but catholicism to resist to british oppression and retain an identity of their own,
- Greece and the orthodox world in general given the role of icons and luxury in the cult.
 
- Ireland because the oppressed irish had nothing else but catholicism to resist to british oppression and retain an identity of their own

I disagree. The Scots converted to Calvinism and this distinguished them from the English. I don't see why the Irish could not do something similar. Not to mention England converting to Protestantism is not a guaranteed thing.
 
And I maintain.

The big big difference between Scotland and Ireland is that the scots were not despoiled of their lands by a foreign power and a foreign people.

Embracing protestantism surely was motivated by cultural conditions but it was also motivated by material conditions.

The strongest incentive was where there was a very rich Church that was very independant from a poor and secular political power.

In Spain and France, the king was powerful and rich and had a strong power over the Church of his kingdom.

Not in Germany (where there de facto was no king although the HRE nominally was king of Germany), in England (the power of the Parliament) and Scotland.

The british kings and german princes turned protestant all the more easily that they badly needed and wanted the Church's properties.
 
In France it would help if Henry IV stayed Protestant, and any French conquests in Germany would lead to them taking over Protestant subjects.

Henri IV staying Protestant in 1593 isn't enough. That's too late. At that point, Protestants were only 10-15% of the population and three decades of religious civil war had essentially fossilized the religious situation. (The big wave of conversions to Protestantism was in the 1550s/early '60s, before the wars broke out.) Henri had pledged to Catholics that he'd respect their rights even before he converted.

You could have Huguenots decisively win the early wars of religion in the 1560s, to the point that the House of Valois is toppled and Henri de Navarre (he would be Henri III) becomes king. That's tricky enough, but even then you'd need him to become a proto-absolutist monarch in an era in which royal authority in France was weak. He'd probably have to face a Fronde-style revolt, and certainly war with Spain. (Conquering parts of Germany probably wouldn't be on the table as he'd need to focus on maintaining hold of his own kingdom.) For this to happen, the city of Paris needs to embrace Protestantism in a way that it didn't OTL (maybe no Affair of the Placards?).

Going back further, probably the most plausible POD might be to have no Concordat of Bologna in 1516. This granted French kings great autonomy over the church in France and thus reduced the rationale for conversion. If Francois I instead comes into dispute with the Pope, maybe you can have a royal Reformation happen in France as in England and Scandinavia.
 
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one possibility for france and spain to go protestant is to have the monarchs break off with rome and transform the local contingent of clergy into a national church. Then to justify their actions they could adopt some or all aspect of protestantism.

the french monarchs have at various time come at loggerhead with rome over just how much control the later could exercise over nomination and as a landowner the church was as much an obstacle to direct control then members of the nobility that joined the various frondes. So have the church as landowner join (moraly) the frondeurs or even just stay a bit too neutral and this could be an excuse for the King to take away foreign control of the local clergy by naming someone as Pope in Avignon which is taken away from the Papal State in a symbolic gesture.
 
Henri IV staying Protestant in 1593 isn't enough. That's too late. At that point, Protestants were only 10-15% of the population and three decades of religious civil war had essentially fossilized the religious situation. (The big wave of conversions to Protestantism was in the 1550s/early '60s, before the wars broke out.) Henri had pledged to Catholics that he'd respect their rights even before he converted.

You could have Huguenots decisively win the early wars of religion in the 1560s, to the point that the House of Valois is toppled and Henri de Navarre (he would be Henri III) becomes king. That's tricky enough, but even then you'd need him to become a proto-absolutist monarch in an era in which royal authority in France was weak. He'd probably have to face a Fronde-style revolt, and certainly war with Spain. (Conquering parts of Germany probably wouldn't be on the table as he'd need to focus on maintaining hold of his own kingdom.) For this to happen, the city of Paris needs to embrace Protestantism in a way that it didn't OTL (maybe no Affair of the Placards?).

Going back further, probably the most plausible POD might be to have no Concordat of Bologna in 1516. This granted French kings great autonomy over the church in France and thus reduced the rationale for conversion. If Francois I instead comes into dispute with the Pope, maybe you can have a royal Reformation happen in France as in England and Scandinavia.

Why do you think 'fossilization' happens and why can it not be reversed? In France and Europe more generally?
 
And I maintain.

The big big difference between Scotland and Ireland is that the scots were not despoiled of their lands by a foreign power and a foreign people.

I think this is much exagerrated. The link between Irish nationalism and Catholicism wasn't cemented until a deliberate cultivation of Irish Presbyterians by Westminster. In late 18th Century, Presbyterian nationalists complained about Catholic hierarchy coddling up to the British!!
 
Why do you think 'fossilization' happens and why can it not be reversed? In France and Europe more generally?

Because once the two sides were at war with each other, trying to peacefully convert the other side was basically impossible.
 
Le Saint-Barthélemy

More than fossilized the positions had been become radicalized thus making it impossible conciliation, especially after the massacre of Le Saint-Barthélemy.

What began as a power struggle between two French noble factions with the religion being another reason for the dispute between them... had become a matter of survival for the French Calvinists.
 
Not in Germany (where there de facto was no king although the HRE nominally was king of Germany), in England (the power of the Parliament) and Scotland.

The british kings and german princes turned protestant all the more easily that they badly needed and wanted the Church's properties.

England went Protestant at the peak of its absolutism; France remained Catholic at the nadir of royal power.
 
England became protestant not despite absolutism but because of absolutism. The king/queen devised his own christianism and forced it on the majority of his people.

The calvinist puritans were as persecuted as the catholics and that's why many of them went to America.

France remained catholic at the nadir of its royal power but anyway did not want to turn protestant.

Beyond the cultural background, what is often underestimated is the material incentive for the king or the prince ruling a territory to turn protestant or the absence of material incentive.

In England and Germany, the royal power had little grip on the church and church properties. They levied little taxes and badly needed money to build a stronger power and a stronger State. Germany and England sent a lot of money to the papacy in Italy.

In France, the royal power was much stronger and the king had already forced long ago a compromise that, politically and financially, was far more fabourable to the national kingdom. That was called gallicanism.

In Spain, the situation was quite to France's but for other reasons. The perpetual struggle against muslims created a situation where the pope could not contest the fact that the spanish (castilan, protuguese, aragonese) kingdoms and the spanish churches keep most of their money to fight the infidels.

You see ? The germans and the english had material reasons to hate the pope and the Church of Rome and the expensive "pagan" works of art displayed in the churches and in the cult.

The spanish and the french and the italians did not have such reasons. And the italians more than anybody else since they were the ones that profited the most of the financial drain exerted by the roman catholic and apostholic Church.
 
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