Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

If Britain had stayed a Catholic Country...

Options
  • 12-06-2013 8:31pm
    #1
    Godot.
    Registered Users Posts: 528 ✭✭✭


    If Catherine of Aragon had given Henry VIII a male heir, or Mary I had produced an heir of any sex, would the Union between Great Britain & Ireland exist to this day... in your opinion?

    Would the people of the Pale have remained loyal to the Crown or probably just would have assimilated with the rest of the population?

    Would there an urge on a mass scale to make Ireland an independent country regardless?


Comments

  • Options
    #2
    An Sionnach Glic
    Registered Users Posts: 134 ✭✭An Sionnach Glic


    We might well have become Protestants to spite them. :) Obviously, we can never really know for sure, but the common historical academic opinion is that Protestantism failed in Ireland on a popular level because it became too closely associated in the minds of many of the Irish with the English colonial project (especially during Elizabeth I's reign). If this negative association had not been established, there's certainly a higher likelihood that the Irish might have embraced Protestantism as a means of resisting the English crown's power. The manner in which the Dutch became Protestants certainly had something to do with the Spanish occupation of the Netherlands and the highly Catholic nature of that monarchy and Protestantism offered one means of resistance to that.

    But then again, there doesn't seem to have been the same widespread resentment in Ireland at the time about the wealth of the church (something which certainly fed the growth of Protestantism on the continent especially) and maybe having one less major reason to feel distinct from England might have made it easier for the Irish to assimilate with the expanding Tudor state (similar to the Welsh). Catholicism mightn't have been the uniting force between the Gaelic Irish and the Old English that it was, which might have made the Gaelic Irish easier to subjugate, but then that in itself might have driven the Gaelic Irish towards Protestantism. So many possibilities.....


  • Options
    #3
    An Sionnach Glic
    Registered Users Posts: 134 ✭✭An Sionnach Glic


    Godot. wrote: »

    Would there an urge on a mass scale to make Ireland an independent country regardless?

    That could well have arisen over another issue at a later stage despite religion. The American colonies and people like Wolfe Tone in Ireland wanted to break the political link with England despite being Protestants. The growth in the confidence and independence of the Irish Parliament in the run up to the 1798 rebellion was also a reflection of growning tensions with England over matters like trade, even between Protestants of the same faith.


  • Options
    #4
    jonniebgood1
    Registered Users Posts: 3,577 ✭✭✭jonniebgood1


    Godot. wrote: »
    If Catherine of Aragon had given Henry VIII a male heir, or Mary I had produced an heir of any sex, would the Union between Great Britain & Ireland exist to this day... in your opinion?

    Would the people of the Pale have remained loyal to the Crown or probably just would have assimilated with the rest of the population?

    Would there an urge on a mass scale to make Ireland an independent country regardless?

    This is a stretch for the history forum Godot. There is no link between the different parts of your theory. What makes you think that this would have prevented division in Ireland, would the Cromwellian influence have been missed. I will leave thread to see where it goes but all opinions need to be based on real history rather than speculation.


  • Options
    #5
    lOWCOUNTRY
    Registered Users Posts: 37 ✭lOWCOUNTRY


    Even if Britain remained catholic a few things would have happened. From the late 16th century to the early twentiety century Britain had a security interest in Ireland. Britain did not want a hostile force West of the Shannon. Such a force would be very difficult to dislodge as was seen in 1690 and would be capable of causing immense difficulties for British security. As late as the First World War, Roger Casement wanted to open a front on the Shannon with German support. Britain would have been involved in wars in continental Europe down the centuries and would't have tolerated a potential threat from the West of Ireland. Either way the British would have expanded into Ireland. After the industrial revolution spare British capital would have moved into Ireland buying up the land. We were the weaker neighbour and like Wales and Scotland would have been subsumed into the Empire.


  • Options
    #6
    mike65
    Closed Accounts Posts: 88,978 ✭✭✭✭mike65


    Would there have been an industrial revolution in Catholic Britain?


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #7
    lOWCOUNTRY
    Registered Users Posts: 37 ✭lOWCOUNTRY


    mike65 wrote: »
    Would there have been an industrial revolution in Catholic Britain?

    Yes. The mineral resources were there and would have been exploited. German catholics built up big industries.


  • Options
    #8
    Manach
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,664 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    The British break with the Catholic Church caused widespread domestic social and economic disruption and internationally cause major shifts in its European diplomatic alignments. Had the link remained, then there would be less of differenial between British and old-Irish ruling houses, and hence more a tendency to assimilate with the Irish language going the same way as Manx/Cornish. The British empire, in part was a reaction to be blocked for the trading links of the Spanish, would likely be not as widely geographicaly diffused as it was and more homogenious in its settler colonies as there would be much less religious driven exodus.


  • Options
    #9
    tac foley
    Registered Users Posts: 5,504 ✭✭✭tac foley


    mike65 wrote: »
    Would there have been an industrial revolution in Catholic Britain?

    Read the alternative history of Catholic England under the rule of Rome in the book 'Pavane', a great read.

    20th century Britain with no internal combustion engine, military armed with crossbows, and telegraphy proscribed as witchcraft.

    tac in Oregon


  • Options
    #10
    goose2005
    Registered Users Posts: 4,798 ✭✭✭goose2005


    Well from the Anglican POV they did remain Catholic - a Reformed Catholic national church, and don't really see themselves as Protestants (which refers to full schismatics like Lutherans and Calvinists). ANd even if Henry VIII had had an heir the issue wasn't going to just vanish - mass literacy, the Lollards etc. had created a 'reformation from below' that matched the force of the 'reformation from above'.
    mike65 wrote: »
    Would there have been an industrial revolution in Catholic Britain?

    If you're referring to the Protestant work ethic, where does that leave France, Bavaria, the Rhineland, Belgium and northern Italy?


  • Options
    #11
    BuilderPlumber
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,378 ✭✭✭BuilderPlumber


    It is hard to know. Irish/English arrangements and alliances were in existence before then. England always backed up one Irish king who wanted to get rid of another. It was Ireland who invited the Anglo-Normans in and they were seen by their Irish inviters as powerful allies. Many Irish did well (those who were on the same side) to the detriment of others (those on the other side).

    Events like the flight of Earls and Battle of Boyne would have happened anyway. In these cases, it was Catholic v Protestant but it was ALWAYS one set of Irish seeing the merits of one possible English king as an ally and another set of Irish favouring a different one. By now, Irish as well as English were mixes of Celts, Saxons and Normans.

    Henry VIII is famous for his proto-Stalinist collectivisation of the Catholic monasteries. Financially, this was a great opportunist idea to allow him to bolster up his economy without enforcing more taxes on his people. Henry VIII had taken over wealth for his country and yet also took the riches off of a enemy that was a threat to him. The rich monasteries could well support another man to become a Catholic English king.

    Assuming the wars of the roses went ahead but England remained Catholic, I guess Henry VIII would have needed to find finance anyway and he would at the very least consider what he did as protestant.

    In today's context, what Henry VIII did was right. Imagine if our government brought in laws to confiscate the billions stashed offshore by scamming developers instead of cutbacks and austerity? That's what Henry VIII did in his time!

    After Henry, events like plantations where English, Scottish and loyal Irish settlers were encouraged to take the land confiscated from enemy personnel would no doubt have continued. The rivalry between Irish chieftains and English usage of this and also Irish chieftain's alliances with their favoured future English king no doubt would have persisted.

    To this very day, Ireland and England remain inseparable. We follow their soccer clubs, watch their soaps, even admire the glamour of their monarchy. Even those who claim to be anti-British do it! We remain a mix of Celtic, Norman and Saxon just like England! Our island remains divided and religious conflicts remain. Just as always. Gone are the chieftains and Earls but perhaps in their place are conflicting national interests. Gone too is religious intolerance but with both our countries still is the same law codes. Norman law. The English had their own Saxon law system and we had the Brehon law but both have been replaced by the Norman law.

    Hence, Normans took over Saxon England (itself a country where Saxons and Celts were intermarried for years before) and then Celtic Ireland. The Saxons by themselves never got to Ireland but in turn were closely related to the ancestors of their Norman invaders (i.e. Danish Vikings).

    So, we have a shared history and much the same things were going on there and here. To this day, Ireland is more like the UK than anywhere else.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #12
    kabakuyu
    Registered Users Posts: 1,135 ✭✭✭kabakuyu


    tac foley wrote: »
    Read the alternative history of Catholic England under the rule of Rome in the book 'Pavane', a great read.

    20th century Britain with no internal combustion engine, military armed with crossbows, and telegraphy proscribed as witchcraft.

    tac in Oregon

    This one? "Pavane" by Keith Roberts is an alternative history science fiction fix-up novel first published by Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd in 1968. Most of the original stories were published in Science Fantasy.


  • Options
    #13
    da_hambo
    Registered Users Posts: 274 ✭✭da_hambo


    There is still more Catholics in UK than Ireland

    http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/11297461

    About 4.7 million according to the above article.

    I just call myself a Christian, get confused by the minute differences between denominations.


Advertisement