DBWI: Cromwell wins

What if Oliver Cromwell’s rebellion had succeeded? IOTL, it led to Parliament’s loss of power and paved the way for the re-Catholification of England. How would this impact world history?
 
Interesting question.

For one, I'd like to note that the re-Catholification process was really only majorly successful for about half a century or so, before the Protestant revival began to really take hold.....which was only sped up by the Act of Union in 1717 which united Britain under one government.(Though Cornwall in particular is still majority Catholic today, as are certain parts of Wales)

That said, though, Parliament's loss of power turned out to be a genuinely bad thing for Britain as a whole, even if Cromwell's own side might have been far from saintly themselves. For one, of the monarchs that followed Charles I, only Charles the Fourth was all that suited to run a nation-II was a paranoid fool, and III.....well, Charles the Third wasn't so much paranoid as just incompetent(but sometimes badly so). The reforms of the 1720s helped alleviate some of the problems that England suffered, though only in the 1780s would the U.K. actually

Also, without Cromwell's loss in the war, we don't see him exiled to New England, which has a real chance of possibly eliminating the Dominion of New England from history ITTL.....But ironically, it might also butterfly the Commonwealth of Northern America as well(seeing as it was one of the world's first modern democracies, that might have a significantly negative effect, at least in the short term, anyway).
 
It wasn't Cromwell' rebellion! The Earl of Essex was the Commander of the Parliamentary Army and wasn't much good. By the time Cromwell took over it was too late! Now if the self-denying Ordinance had been passed in 1645 which meant that you either sat in Parliament or led the army but not both-who knows. Also remember that Thomas Fairfax was the pre-eminent Parliamentary military leader until he gave up in disgust at the leadership of the army and retired to Yorkshire. He would have been a much needed counterweight to Cromwell's excesses (Massacre of York in 1646, Second Harrowing of the North! There is a reason that the North remained stubbornly loyal to the Stuarts despite the excesses of the later Stuart Kings.).
 
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It wasn't Cromwell' rebellion! The Earl of Essex was the Commander of the Parliamentary Army and wasn't much good. By the time Cromwell took over it was too late! Now if the self-denying Ordinance had been passed in 1645 which meant that you either sat in Parliament or led the army but not both-who knows. Also remember that Thomas Fairfax was the pre-eminent Parliamentary military leader until he gave up in disgust at the leadership of the army and retired to Yorkshire. He would have been a much needed counterweight to Cromwell's excesses (Massacre of York in 1646, Second Harrowing of the North! There is a reason that the North remained stubbornly loyal to the Stuarts despite the excesses of the later Stuart Kings.).

Okay, true
 
Interesting question.

For one, I'd like to note that the re-Catholification process was really only majorly successful for about half a century or so, before the Protestant revival began to really take hold.....which was only sped up by the Act of Union in 1717 which united Britain under one government.(Though Cornwall in particular is still majority Catholic today, as are certain parts of Wales)

I've never seen northern England being counted as a part of Wales before.

In reality the much vaunted "Protestant Revival" did little more than prevent a total reunion with Rome. Even in much of the south the neo-Anglicans have slim majorities.
 
I've never seen northern England being counted as a part of Wales before.

In reality the much vaunted "Protestant Revival" did little more than prevent a total reunion with Rome. Even in much of the south the neo-Anglicans have slim majorities.

Hell, King Edward is married to the Catholic Princess Annita of Spain and is raising his heir, Prince John, as a Catholic.
 
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Hell, King Edward is married to the Catholic Princess Annita of Spain and is raising his heir, Prince John, as a Catholic.

Well, one could argue that it should have taken fewer than 4 centuries to hammer out the minute doctrinal differences between Rome and Canterbury in order to bring the two churchs into official communion with one another. Vatican 5's recent passage has really shown the Papacy, ultimately, had to bend more on theological terms, even though it's the monarchies having to give up practical political influence.

I've never seen northern England being counted as a part of Wales before.

In reality the much vaunted "Protestant Revival" did little more than prevent a total reunion with Rome. Even in much of the south the neo-Anglicans have slim majorities.

The Northumbrian region is... complicated to say the least. While most folk would identify as Catholic, the regional Bishops certainly took more than a few pages from the Scottish church in terms of practical application of their duties and local control and influence from their congregations. Secular politics really muddied the waters here though, since it's hard to tell how much of the push came from the opposition to centralization/power consolidation attempts by King Charles II, III, and IV (real creative guys...), which had both religious and practical dimensions. So much of the local nobility and commercial elite would have probably joined in the open flip to Neo-Anglicanism without the need for the "2nd Baron's Alliance" between church, town, and gentry against the nobility and monarchy, but not wanting to disturb the peasentry's cherished traditions overly much to produce a reaction made attempts at Protestantization politically untenable.
 

mad orc

Banned
Please can someone explain what is DWBI ?
Its really confusing to have these random strange threads laying around .

I got a heart attack when someone asked "What if Oliver Cromwell won ?" .
 
Well, one could argue that it should have taken fewer than 4 centuries to hammer out the minute doctrinal differences between Rome and Canterbury in order to bring the two churchs into official communion with one another. Vatican 5's recent passage has really shown the Papacy, ultimately, had to bend more on theological terms, even though it's the monarchies having to give up practical political influence.

Vatican 5 finally solved the issue of what to do with homosexual priests, which was the key difference between the two churches
 
Please can someone explain what is DWBI ?
Its really confusing to have these random strange threads laying around .

I got a heart attack when someone asked "What if Oliver Cromwell won ?" .

OOC: DBWI means Double Blind What If—it’s like we say what if something that happened OTL had happened instead of the thing that didn’t actually happen.
 
Please can someone explain what is DWBI ?
Its really confusing to have these random strange threads laying around .

I got a heart attack when someone asked "What if Oliver Cromwell won ?" .
OOC: DBWI means Double Blind What If—it’s like we say what if something that happened OTL had happened instead of the thing that didn’t actually happen.
OOC: Another example would be "what if America won its independence? That DBWI presupposes that we live in a world where America didn't win it's independence, and we have fun talking about what might have happened from that perspective.
Also, to talk about something other than the topic or in a way other than in-character, you start your statement with "OOC:", which stands for "Out of Character." :)
 
OOC: Another example would be "what if America won its independence? That DBWI presupposes that we live in a world where America didn't win it's independence, and we have fun talking about what might have happened from that perspective.
Also, to talk about something other than the topic or in a way other than in-character, you start your statement with "OOC:", which stands for "Out of Character." :)

Yep
 
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