Teejay
Gone Fishin'
I often ask how the Protestant reformation would have affected England, if for some reason Henry VIII did not break England away from allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church.
My best guess is that England as a whole would have remained a very Roman Catholic country and this would have been reinforced if the Counter Reformation got established in England.
However even if the state remained Catholic, it would have been quite possible that a sizeable minority of the population (particularly among people in London and the South), including with a large proportion of the gentry and nobility becoming Protestant. They would be Protestants of the Calvinist Iconoclastic sort and seeing themselves as the heirs of the Lollards.
Protestant Reformation in OTL, the populace of North (to a lesser degree the Midlands and the West Country) remained strongly Catholic. While London and the South were much more supportive of the Reformation and in the 17th century became the strongholds of Puritanism. This North-South divide in England was reflected in the levels of support for Lollardy in the late 14th and early 15th centuries.
This scenario above could have very well been a recipe for a religious civil war in England. Especially if the Monarchy decides to invade Scotland (probably by the invitation of Mary Stuart) in order to suppress the reformation which occurred there in the 16th century.
My best guess is that England as a whole would have remained a very Roman Catholic country and this would have been reinforced if the Counter Reformation got established in England.
However even if the state remained Catholic, it would have been quite possible that a sizeable minority of the population (particularly among people in London and the South), including with a large proportion of the gentry and nobility becoming Protestant. They would be Protestants of the Calvinist Iconoclastic sort and seeing themselves as the heirs of the Lollards.
Protestant Reformation in OTL, the populace of North (to a lesser degree the Midlands and the West Country) remained strongly Catholic. While London and the South were much more supportive of the Reformation and in the 17th century became the strongholds of Puritanism. This North-South divide in England was reflected in the levels of support for Lollardy in the late 14th and early 15th centuries.
This scenario above could have very well been a recipe for a religious civil war in England. Especially if the Monarchy decides to invade Scotland (probably by the invitation of Mary Stuart) in order to suppress the reformation which occurred there in the 16th century.