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Is it possible to have a Protestant sect arise in or spread to Spain during the Reformation period and become large enough to become influential? It doesn't matter whether their tradition is Lutheran or Calvinist or what, and it certainly isn't necessary for the government itself to convert. In fact, that much probably is impossible, given the political realities of the time; even if a Protestant takes the Spanish throne, he'd probably have to at least pay lip service to Catholicism. (If even Henry IV had to become Catholic to rule France, a technically-Catholic but not very Rome-centered nation, then I doubt any Protestant could rule Spain.) Still, I'd like to see a Spanish Protestant sect become at least as large as the French Huguenots.

What would it take to get a sect large enough that the Inquisition couldn't stamp them out? Would the Inquisition itself have to be weakened for it to even be possible? And could groups of the Protestants sail to somewhere in the New World to found their own colonies to escape persecution--sort of a Spanish version of Puritan New England?
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