No 'Great matter' what happens to English Church?

WI Catherine of Aragon died a natural death in the late 1520s. Henry would not need to divorce her to marry Anne Boleyn.

There were some Protestants in those days in England. Would they have been successfully suppressed?

Where would the Crown get money if it did not raid the rich Monastries?
 
Then he sticks with the Catholic Church. Even when he had his own church, Henry was very Catholic. It was under Edward that actual protestantism (not Henry's English Catholicism, minus a massive landgrab) really moved into the mainstream, and it was under Elizabeth that England went true majority protestant. Under Mary, the country was still slightly majority Catholic, or at least around 50-50.

He broke for the only reason of having a male heir. If Boleyn of whatever girl takes his fancy can't bear him a son, then he has a problem.

On the other hand, if she isn't a foreign princess, he might just find trumped up charges and dismiss her somehow.

But he has a better chance having a son with another woman, so the whole thing might be avoided.

If Catholic's continue to rule England, you probably see a situation develop where the monarchy gets further control over the Church, as in OTL's Gallicanism or how the Spanish crown basically ran the Spanish inquisition.
 
Mary, Queen of Scots, was a staunch Catholic, but the Protestant Scots still managed to make the country go full Calvinist. I know that they had some English help, but Mary had French allies too, and she still lost. Of course, the Tudor monarchy was far stronger vis-a-vis its subjects than the Scottish one ever was, but I still think that the English Protestants had some chances, even if slim, to survive royal suppression of their faith under Henry VIII, and then to try to get a Protestant king in power (like their French brethren tried to, and their Scottish brethren and neighbours succeeded in), or at least to fight for toleration within a Catholic state (like the Protestant French did after 1598).

Interestingly, a successful Protestant rising might have ended in (parts of) England turning into something like the Republic of the United Netherlands, even if for a time only.
 
Mary, Queen of Scots, was a staunch Catholic, but the Protestant Scots still managed to make the country go full Calvinist. I know that they had some English help, but Mary had French allies too, and she still lost. Of course, the Tudor monarchy was far stronger vis-a-vis its subjects than the Scottish one ever was, but I still think that the English Protestants had some chances, even if slim, to survive royal suppression of their faith under Henry VIII, and then to try to get a Protestant king in power (like their French brethren tried to, and their Scottish brethren and neighbours succeeded in), or at least to fight for toleration within a Catholic state (like the Protestant French did after 1598).

Interestingly, a successful Protestant rising might have ended in (parts of) England turning into something like the Republic of the United Netherlands, even if for a time only.

England was much closer to Scotland than France was, though, and hence better-able to send aid to their chosen faction.
 
Top