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The POD here is that Mary Tudor lives longer, and so her re-Catholicisation programme has time to properly bed down. Let's say that she dies at the age Elizabeth did IOTL, meaning that she dies in 1585 at the age of sixty-nine, after a reign of 32 years. Let's also say that she leaves an adult son behind to continue her work. As I see it, there are four main areas of possible difference to consider:

1.) Development of English culture and national identity. Since England is an island, I think it's always likely that its sense of identity would be involve the idea of its being in some way opposed to the Continent, but with the country following the same religion as the majority of Europe this would probably be less pronounced. I'm not sure what specific effects this might have, though.

Another thing worth mentioning is the linguistic effects: a lot of expressions in modern English come from the Book of Common Prayer or the King James Bible (flat on his face, the apple of his eye, the skin of his teeth, God save the King, etc.), which would probably be butterflied away. Then again, the Counter-Reformation did place a strong emphasis on teaching and catechesis, so I could see the government producing an authorised Bible translation to help with this. Does anybody know what happened in Catholic Europe? Do French, Spanish, Italian etc. have these sorts of Biblical expressions in everyday speech?

(ETA: Also, political development would belong here. IOTL England's development as a Parliamentary rather than absolutist monarchy owed a lot to Henry VIII's sale of monastic land to pay for his French wars, which ended up strengthening the long-term financial position of the nobility vis-à-vis that of the Crown. TTL this would already have happened, so we might expect to see a similar process occur. This would have further interesting ramifications for the development of English identity: IOTL a lot of seventeenth-century polemics drew a contrast between the freedom-loving Protestants of England and the slavish, tyrannical Catholics of France and Spain, and this sense of antithesis probably owed a lot to the different political trajectories of England/Britain and the states on the Continent. TTL this difference would still be present, but it obviously wouldn't be seen as a Protestant vs. Catholic thing. Possibly it could be seen as an Anglo-Saxon vs. Continental thing, leading to an earlier sense of English nationalism.)

2.) Foreign policy. England and Castile/Spain enjoyed close relations in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and their later enmity can largely be traced to Henry VIII's break with Rome. Mary of course followed a very pro-Spanish foreign policy, and even if that cools off somewhat after her death the two countries will likely remain on friendly terms. What would the effects of this be? IOTL Elizabeth's aid to Spain's enemies was often pretty ineffectual (the English units sent to help the Dutch had a pretty poor reputation, as I recall), so I'm not sure that TTL England's aid to Spain (if it does directly aid Spain) will be particularly helpful, although having one less enemy to worry about can only help Spain's chances compared to OTL.

3.) The rest of the British Isles. Mary stepped up English efforts to conquer Ireland, so it's likely that the place would be conquered at around the same time as IOTL. There would still be cultural and ethnic clashes, but having a shared faith would remove a major source of OTL contention, so I'd expect English rule to be easier/more humane, perhaps resulting in Ireland remaining part of the UK (or *UK) until the present day.

North of the border, it's quite likely that Mary would support the Catholics once the Reformation comes to Scotland, possibly tipping the balance in their favour. If the two crowns end up getting united TTL the lack of an "Us Protestants gotta stick together" mentality might make the union more fragile, although the two countries were already relatively similar culturally (large parts of Scotland spoke a dialect of English, for example), and strategic and economic logic would militate in favour of union.

4.) Historiography. A lot of the global spread of Protestantism comes directly or indirectly from Britain or the British Empire, and if Britain remains Catholic it's likely that Protestantism would remain largely confined to Scandinavia and northern Germany. Given this, it's possible that the Reformation would be seen in TTL's historiography as something of a blip -- a controversy that caused a lot of trouble at the time, but ultimately ended up fizzling out outside of a relatively circumscribed area.


So those are my thoughts on the matter; anybody care to add their own?
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