How To Get A Centralised Holy Roman Empire Under the Habsburgs?

IMHO the best chance for the HRE to centralize was for Charles I & V to leave the Burgundian inheritance to the Maximilians instead of Spain.

This gives a the Maximilians a demesne that is roughly half of the HRE and by far the richer half. Allowing centralization to take place, especially with the legitimacy of fighting off the Turkish infidel.

Not really. Any centralization after the reformation needs one of two things to happen: 1. Either the Catholics crush the Protestants or 2. religion ceases to be a major political concern. That's why the Thirty years' war is really the only opportunity between the Reformation and 1700. It crushed the Emperor's religious and political rivals within the Empire and could have been the start of centralization if foreign intervention is avoided/derailed.

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I would go back to the 1500s and have the Hapsburgs adopt something between Anglicanism and Lutheranism. Quash the Catholics, establish a variant episcopacy, and place the Emperor or his pet as Head Of The Imperial Church.

Might backfire, but has a better chance of avoiding the effective north/south split the Reformation caused in the Germanies than anything else.

Not gonna happen under Emperor Karl nor would the idea ever cross his mind. Though I will say in theory it does have merit.
 
I would go back to the 1500s and have the Hapsburgs adopt something between Anglicanism and Lutheranism. Quash the Catholics, establish a variant episcopacy, and place the Emperor or his pet as Head Of The Imperial Church.

I think this would backfire horribly. The HRE owed its original existence to the Papacy and Emperors were still crowned by Popes, so for the Emperor to repudiate the Papacy would cast his own legitimacy into question.

Plus, "quashing the Catholics" would only work if he could get virtually all of the Empire's subjects to adopt Protestantism, but the Empire was big and diverse enough for this to be an implausible goal. Most likely any attempt to impose Protestantism would lead to a big civil war like the French Wars of Religion, English Civil War, or Thirty Years' War, with the same consequences for Imperial unity that OTL's Thirty Years' War had.
 
That's why the Thirty years' war is really the only opportunity between the Reformation and 1700

Charles I & V did his abdications in 1554-56 60 years before the 30 Year's War & 12 years before the rumblings in the Netherlands turned into the 80 Year's War.

So if he still leaves Spain to Philip II and HRE(including the Netherlands) to Ferdinand I, with a caveat that Maximilian II get to rule the Netherlands. In order to butterfly the 80 year's war, that means by the time the Peace of Augsburg falls apart in 1618, the situation will be more in favor of the Habsburgs/Catholics.

On the side of the the Protestants you start with:
-The Palatinate-Bohemia (the Winter King or CB)
-Saxony
-Brandenburg-Prussia
-Brunswick-Lüneburg

On the Catholic Side
-HRE
-Austria
-The Low Lands
-The smaller states
-The Catholic League
-Bavaria
-All the Prince-Bishoprics
-Hungary
-Croatia

This gives the Catholics a massive numerical, economic and geographic advantage. Enough of one that the 30 Year's war probably never happens. I am thinking the Winter King(the Palatinate Elector) refuses Bohemia, as he is surrounded by the HRE. He would know he has no chance against the Emperor.

So the Diet of Bohemia is not left with much choice as who to make King of Bohemia instead of the HRE. Both Saxony and Brandenburg-Prussia would never allow the other to take Bohemia. And Brunswick isn't an Elector and therefore too junior.

That would leave non-German rulers but only England, Denmark and Sweden are non-Catholic. And none of them could project force into Bohemia to stay the wrath of the Emperor.

So if internal peace is maintained in the HRE, the Emperor can focus his strength on beating the Turks and other foreign invaders. This will give him enormous legitimacy, enough that when he calls the banners the Electors will be hard pressed to abstain from joining him. For any of the smaller Hög Adel it will be virtually impossible to refuse the Emperor, this would kick of the centralization.

This while on paper the protestants would still be in balance with the catholics. They would maintain 3 electors (Palatinate, Saxony, and Brandenburg) against 4 on the catholic side (Bohemia(HRE) and the 3 Archbishops). But on the ground re-catholicization would keep moving north.
 
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I'm a big fan of the idea of a post-Westphalian reform, partly because the Empire continued to do a fair bit after that date. The Empire was raising tens of thousands of men to fight the French and Turks into the 18th century, after all.

Will it be a shiny elite Prussian state? Probably not. But is that so bad?
 
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