There should be a word called “historic denial”. How can even skew your view of history to believe what you are actually writing. As for the thought about if Edward the VI would have been sympathetic. Are you aware that Edward VI was the son of Jane Seymour, you know the wife who came after Ann Boylen, the woman Henry broke with Rome to marry. How was Henry VIII able to marry Ann? By divorcing Queen Catherine. How was he able to have his marriage seen as valid when the Pope refused to grant him a divorce from Queen Catherine? By breaking with Rome. If Henry had never broke with Rome he never would have been able to have a valid marriage with Ann, or Jane Seymour. And even if he kept Jane Seymour as a mistress, Edward would never have take the throne because he wouldn’t have been a legitimate heir. And besides he died at age 17. So you are really grasping at historical straws here.
And as to if other Protestant forces would have made England Protestant, if not for Henry VIII. Really, under a Catholic Kingdom that answers to the Pope (had Henry kept England Catholic) in the 16th century, or 17th or 18th the century before the idea of free speech, in an era where talking against your King was considered treason punishable by death, if that’s what the King wanted, all of which depended how he felt that day. You really think that a Catholic monarch would allow for religion to take hold if it threatened that monarch’s relationship, standing, power, and backing as received from the Vatican? You really think that a 16th or even 17th century or even 18th and 19th century monarch would allow for a few philosophers and scholars and unhappy aristocrats to have a voice and movement when it brought into question part of his power base and his religion, the religion of a King and His Royal family? I don’t know if we’re looking at the same centuries.
Yes, I am aware that Edward VI was the son of Jane Seymour-and I’ve been aware of that since I was a child. But I never said anything at all about Edward VI had Henry not “divorced” Catherine and broken with Rome. You’re conflating one of my posts with that of another poster. So you should retract your statement about my “grasping at historical straws” since you are basing it on something I never said or implied.
Yes, I’m aware about the different ideas about free speech. However, I ask you, how did the Anabaptists survive? They were opposed by everyone; and virtually everyone sought to annihilate them. Yet, they managed to survive. Furthermore, Henry was unable to stamp out those varieties of Protestantism he despised (all varities of Protestantism other than Anglicanism). His eldest child, Mary I, who remained faithful to Catholicism was also unable to stop the wave of Protestantism within England. In fact, her ill-advised persecution of Protestants likely helped further their cause.
Also, Continental Protestants thrived the most on in areas with Protestant rulers, but they didn’t simply cease to exist in areas with Catholic rulers. In fact, the Peace of Westphalia established limited religious freedom for those whose religion was different from that of the ruler. I suspect that such an agreement would have arisen in England had Henry remained Catholic.
Now, to the assertion that there would presently be fewer Protestants and more Catholics had Henry VIII never broken with Rome. That is certainly plausible. However, we don’t know that to be the case, and we cannot know that to be the case. England had a history of dissent from Catholicism that predated the Reformation, and Reformation ideas from the Continent quickly spread to England-ideas that were abhorrent to Henry.
What we do know to be the case is that Henry was not sympathetic with Lutheranism, Calvinism, or the Radical Reformation. Those varieties of Protestantism grew without influence or support from Anglicanism. Lutheranism never really gained a following in England, but Calvinism and the Radical Reformation did-in spite of opposition from Henry to their idea.
Finally there is there the argument you’ve been making. It was not just that Protestantism would have fewer adherents had it not been for Henry’s schism from Rome (that is certainly a plausible argument, but one that is neither verifiable nor falsifiable), but that Protestantism would have either faded away or remained small in numbers, because of the support you keep alleging it received from England during the reign of Henry. Henry never supported any version of Protestantism other than Anglicanism. Protestantism on the Continent did not benefit at all from Henry, and it benefitted little, if at all, from subsequent English monarchs. Furthermore, England under Henry was not really all that powerful-certainly not nearly as powerful as it would become under subsequent rulers.
I don’t think I’m the one engaging in “historic denial.”
(little Star Trek II TWOK reference related to your pic on the other thread!)