DBWI:Protestant England

I read a really weird ATL where - as it turns out - Elizabeth takes a third option when she became Queen (ITTL Mary married Philip II of Spain, of all people!) and decides to placate both hardline Protestants and lukewarm reformers by retaining church hierarchy even with a clean break with Rome and some doctrinal differences.

Guess even in ATLs England can't get TOO Protestant. ;)
It made a degree of sense there, though. Kinda, sorta. I think it had the claim that England was going with their ancient rights and that the King always had authority over the church. Ignoring when King John made himself a vassal of the Pope. Thinking back to Henry II, his kids, and the French though... Yah, that was the end of the Angevin Empire, wasn't it? Helped a,long by French bullying. There is an idea (though it might be from a timeline I read). What if England claimed it was an empire? Because of Henry saying he was King of France and England and had the Irish and Scots as vassals. Then he could technically become Protestant and take the authority the Spanish and French had in their domains over appointing bishops and deciding whether or not they could leave the country. Come to think of it though, England and France never gave up their claims to each other, did they? Though more focus was put upon being Duke of Normandy after that one successful invasion.
 
I read a really weird ATL where - as it turns out - Elizabeth takes a third option when she became Queen (ITTL Mary married Philip II of Spain, of all people!) and decides to placate both hardline Protestants and lukewarm reformers by retaining church hierarchy even with a clean break with Rome and some doctrinal differences.

Guess even in ATLs England can't get TOO Protestant. ;)

Elizabeth becomes Queen? So Mary and Philip don't have any children - or is there another civil war like the whole Jane Grey fiasco?

As for the religion - why on earth would anyone ever want what basically seems to be Catholicism with the serial numbers filed off? Surely the Protestants (whichever sects there were in England at the time) would protest that it's not radical enough and ignores 95% of the Ninety-Five Theses, whilst the Catholics would protest against rejecting papal authority? If this was attempted, I could see Elizabeth remembered as one of the worst monarchs in English history...
 
whilst the Catholics would protest against rejecting papal authority? If this was attempted, I could see Elizabeth remembered as one of the worst monarchs in English history

That brings me to the biggest asspull in that TL IMO - Spain assembles an Armada to bring England back into the fold, but with a combo of bad luck with weather, the Spanish getting stuck with the Idiot Ball, and the English being just as competent as OTL meant it failed.
 
That brings me to the biggest asspull in that TL IMO - Spain assembles an Armada to bring England back into the fold, but with a combo of bad luck with weather, the Spanish getting stuck with the Idiot Ball, and the English being just as competent as OTL meant it failed.

So England defeats Spain in a naval battle? OTL, Spain had the most powerful navy in the world at the time, for obvious reasons, and had all the ports they needed in the Netherlands, whilst the English navy was still being defeated by privateers from time to time. Was this story a parody or something?
 
So England defeats Spain in a naval battle? OTL, Spain had the most powerful navy in the world at the time, for obvious reasons, and had all the ports they needed in the Netherlands, whilst the English navy was still being defeated by privateers from time to time. Was this story a parody or something?

It gets better - Elizabeth dies unmarried and childless 15 years after beating the Armada, and her heir happens to be the King of Scotland despite her putting the previous Scottish queen to death.

And ITTL the Spanish are always in possession of the Idiot Ball - they actually lost half of the Netherlands to Protestants which weakened their naval superiority.

There's being a top world power like OTL England is. And then there's TTL England, which goes from strength to strength that even setbacks are merely temporary.

I fear sequels may make the Anglowank worse than it already is.
 
It gets better - Elizabeth dies unmarried and childless 15 years after beating the Armada, and her heir happens to be the King of Scotland despite her putting the previous Scottish queen to death.

And ITTL the Spanish are always in possession of the Idiot Ball - they actually lost half of the Netherlands to Protestants which weakened their naval superiority.

There's being a top world power like OTL England is. And then there's TTL England, which goes from strength to strength that even setbacks are merely temporary.

I fear sequels may make the Anglowank worse than it already is.

Words fail me. I have a horrible feeling that the author thought that this Scottish inheritance would be a really clever way of letting England get Scotland without having to have a war.

Having the Dutch Protestants win, meanwhile, is a PoD that doesn't get used often enough, in my opinion. Then again, it's one of those things that everyone saw as possible at the time, but subsequent events and other factors just make it very unlikely. (A bit like Prussia uniting the German states or the Ottomans keeping Constantinople - two other TL mainstays.) Then again, if this author used it for the sole purpose of defeating the Spanish, it makes it seem a bit less inviting...
 
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