(The POD for this timeline is that Luther becomes a mediocre lawyer instead of a becoming a monk and leading the Protestant Reformation. Anyways, here goes.)
An Orange World: A TL
The Renaissance in Europe officially ended in 1492, with the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus. It also ushered in a new era for Spanish strength and prosperity, one that would last for over one hundred years. But it was the ideas of the Renaissance coupled with the invention of the Printing Press in Europe that turned people’s opinions against the major power broker at the time; the papacy.
Papal authority had been absolute in the Middle Ages. The Catholic Church exercised complete and total control over this entire feudal remnant of Europe and kept the entire population downtrodden in serfdom. The power of the pope continued to grow until ultimately in the year 1300 AD, the head of the Church in Rome controlled over one-third of all the land in Europe. All of this power was about to shift hands however at the end to the Renaissance. Populations had returned to their pre-black Death levels and people were beginning to learn more and prosper more. They also began to see the massive corruption that existed within this church and more specifically the sale of indulgences in order to raise money. Many also saw the pope appoint his friends and family to positions of power within the church hierarchy. Many had lost faith in the church and saw it as just another offshoot of Italian politics. All of this dry grass had been great, just waiting to set aflame.
There was no real leader of the Protestant Revolution. But all of their ideological roots trace back to the great bridge between the Renaissance and the Revolution; Erasmus. One of the greatest thinkers of his day, Erasmus pushed for humanist ideals and was very critical of the more morally reprehensible aspects of the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, Erasmus was good friends with many catholic leaders and well as Kings and nobles. But, contrary to what many of the revolutionaries in Europe may say, Erasmus never condoned violence or theocracy in his criticism of the Pope and his questionable practices. In fact he did not join any of these revolutionary movements until quite late in his life, when he discover one that suited his humanist ideals
Ultimately, several voices began to speak out against the papacy, all of whom had received some ideas from Erasmus. Although these Revolutionaries the stirring of the Revolution preceded Erasmus even. Jan Hus spoke out against the Pope even earlier in Bohemia, but because of a stronger reaction by the papacy and his burning at the stake in 1415, his ideas never emerged from Prague. The underlying problems and sympathies remained and the time was ripe for the Revolution by 1520.
In southern Germany and the eastern Swiss Canons, the first to speak against the church was Huldrych Zwingli. He was educated at the University of Vienna and upon returning to Zurich met with Erasmus several times and began his ministry as the leader of the church in Zurich. Contrary to what many priests did at the time, he began to critically analyze the bible and its contrarian nature to what the Catholic Church was doing. His preaching was quite different and immediately in 1519, followed many of the humanist guidelines set by Erasmus. However as time went on, his pulpit began to appear more and more zealous. Zwingli attacked moral corruption and in the process he named individuals who were the targets of his denunciations. He accused monks of indolence and high living. He specifically rejected the veneration of saints and called for the need to distinguish between their true and fictional accounts. He casted doubts on hellfire and asserted that unbaptised children were not damned. He questioned the power of excommunication. He attacked the claim that tithing was a divine institution. After 1524, this preaching began to evolve into what the pope believed to be heretical calls for a removal of priestly celibacy. In 1524, a papal bull demanded that Zwingli cease his heretical teachings or he would excommunicate him. Zwingli was left with a precipitous choice.
Meanwhile in northern Germany, Andreas Karlstadt was beginning his ministry in a similar way to Zwingli had, yet Karlstadt had moved to Rome for his studies. There he saw the massively corrupt policies of the papacy and the problems within it. After returning, he also had a correspondence with Erasmus although his influence under some of Erasmus’s ideas was quite different to Zwingli. He emphasized the mysticism and militarism of Christianity, rejecting the scholarly and what he saw as unnecessary pursuits. He found an unlikely ally in Ulrich von Hutten, a leader of the Imperial Knights of the Holy Roman Empire. Hutten began to build a militant support group around Karlstadt’s popular message of reform, which was also supported by Franz von Sickingen. In the same papal bull issued to Zwingli was given, he admonished them and threatened to excommunicate them as well. Hutten, who had quietly built up his power among the ranks of Imperial Knights and several northern Germanic nobles threatened all out war and guaranteed a massive massacre of Catholics if it ever came to fruition.
This papal bull and the popularity of opposition to it would require military intervention in both southern and northern Germany. The Pope at the time was Clement VII, who saw this as very worldly attack on his power and his grip over the Holy Roman Empire. He enlisted the help of the most powerful man in Europe since Caesar, Charles V of Hapsburg. Charles V did not care much for Clement and he certainly did not want to go and wreak havoc on his own population. But he was forced to halfheartedly comply with Clements’s calls for retaliation to his excommunication, which was doing nothing to stem the popular upwelling of support for Zwingli and Karlstadt. Charles V was finally convinced when he found out about heavy Knight Support and whispers of uprising against the power of the Church within the HRE. Charles realized the threat they posed against his Emperorship and began raising forces. Once the Knights began antagonizing one of the bishoprics held provinces of the HRE in 1531, Charles decided it was time to march to Vienna, where his brother Ferdinand I of Hapsburg was currently in very dire straights…