Protestantism

Protestantism refers broadly to a number of reformist sects of Christianity which branched off from the Catholic Church beginning in the sixteenth century.

Protestants in Ruled Britannia
Protestantism was introduced to England by Henry VIII as the official state religion in 1530. Throughout the remainder of the sixteenth century, religion would be something of a political football in England with Protestantism supported by Henry, his son Edward VI, and his daughter, Queen Elizabeth and Catholicism supported by his other daugher, Queen Mary Tudor, and the Spanish-backed Queen Isabella and King Albert.

Most of England's neighbors were Catholic, though under Elizabeth England supported Protestant uprisings in the Netherlands and Scotland. The militantly Catholic Spanish King Philip II launched the Spanish Armada to conquer England in 1588. Philip installed his daughter, Isabella, on England's throne, and with the support of Spanish and Irish forces, English Catholics, and the English Inquisition, she suppressed Protestantism in England for ten years.

In 1598 she was expelled from England by a predominantly Protestant coup, though it included many English Catholics who were tired of foreign rule in their country. Elizabeth was restored, and she restored Protestantism as England's official state religion--and a period of bloody reprisals against English Catholics, some of whom had supported the revolt which restored her, followed.

The various Protestant sects were by and large more united politically than theologically; for instance, Lutheran Denmark accepted Anglican refugees from England. However, in England under Elizabeth, the Puritans, who opposed her rule because they did not see her as sufficiently radically reformist, were persecuted even when Protestantism was the kingdom's state religion.

Protestants in World War
Most Protestant countries successfully resisted the Race's Conquest Fleet. Those Protestants who did find themselves within the Race's territory benefited from the Race's practice of religious tolerance, and like most monotheists, they by and large refused to participate in the Race's cult of emperor-worship.

In Northern Ireland, Protestants who supported continued British presence in their country were involved in a number of violent incidents with their nationalist, Catholic neighbors.

Protestants in Southern Victory
Protestants are a majority in Canada, the United States, and the Anglophone Confederate States. They are a minority in the Republic of Quebec and the CS's Hispanic states of Chihuahua, Sonora, and Cuba.

Protestants were favored over Catholics in Canada under the British Empire, contributing to the Quebecois disaffection which allowed US President Theodore Roosevelt to create the Republic of Quebec in 1916. However, Protestants as such are not mistreated in occupied Anglophone Canada.

In the pre-Freedom Party era of the CS, Protestants were favored over Catholics. Freedomite president Jake Featherston put an end to that practice, partly to inspire Hispanic loyalty, partly because he believed only blacks deserved to be persecuted, and partly because he saw religion as an irrelevance.