FillyofDelphi
Banned
Protestant England equals catholic ireland instead of Puritan Ireland. Without the rise of Irish Capitalism, do we ever have an industrial revolution?
Yes; we were already seeing proto-industrialism kicking off in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden from the Protestant diaspora combining cheap timber, peat, and copper reserves and the woolens industry with their own mercantile connections, know-how, and efficient guild and corperate organization. Now, it could have very well faltered for a time in the gap between the Dutch running out their peat bogs and the rise of the efficient steam engine, but the ideas were still there and would have emerged in the Balkans and Northern Germany anyways.
What does this mean for Empire? After all it was the who Pope decreed that the Americas would only be split between Iberia, France and England. Maybe a protestant England breaks the mould and other Lutheran states could have empires. Who knows maybe the triple alliance between France, Spain and England wouldn't dominate the world.
OOC: This runs directly counter to my earlier post, which talked about the Catholic empires being mainly continental while the non-Catholics became sea/merchantile empires.