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“Frederick, Elector of Saxony, as a young prince created one of the largest collections of sacred relics in Europe, yet he became after 1517 the patron and protector of Luther. Had Gerald, ninth Earl of Kildare (1487-1534) and Lord Deputy of Ireland, a Luther in his chapel, he might have been equally tempted to follow a reformist path. And if the matrimonial disorder of his monarch, Henry VIII, had not driven that ruler down the path of schism, what curiosities might have been seen in Ireland! In that circumstance a devoutly Catholic English king—already, in 1521 proclaimed Defensor Fidei by a grateful Papacy—could have found himself struggling (with Papal blessing) to expand his power over a ‘wild and heretical people’ in Ireland. In a European comparative framework the undoubted Catholicism of modern Ireland—like the religious character of other parts of Europe—appears a product of its relatively recent past, not some immemorial racial or ethnic character, unchanging and predestined.”


From: Bottigheimer and Lotz-Heumann: “Ireland in the European Reformation.” Early Modern History, issue 4, volume 6, winter 1998.

The premise of this TL is that Gerald FitzGerald gets such a chaplain, in the person of a minor and OTL fairly obscure English reformer named Thomas Bilney. Perhaps the most theologically modest of the English reformers (he favored the Lutheran position on justification, but supported papal authority, trans-substantiation and the sacrifice of the mass as of his death), Bilney fell afoul of Cardinal Wolsey, and was burned for his "heresy". ITTL, however, the intervention of some friends in Cambridge sees him exiled to serve as Gerald FitzGerald's chaplain in 1525 or so. From that point, butterflies will flap madly.

Please post any questions, comments, thoughts on the impact of these developments, etc.
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