The Close of the 16th Century (Part 1)
1562 - 1600 AD
Religious Tension
The emergence of Protestant and Reformed Christianity caused a strong ripple in Europe, but its effects had only begun to become visible in its earliest days. As the 16th century wound on through it second half and toward its close, the effects for the Catholic and Protestant world became clearer and more distinguished.
The conclusion of the Council of Trent saw the formalized institution of many threads of thought, policy, and piety in the Catholic world. The institution of the Church acknowledged some of Gilbride's criticisms, and it was through this period that the political and economic excesses of the European clergy were toned down considerably (outside the Vatican itself, which continued to assert the dual spiritual and political rule of the Papal States from Rome).
France and Italy, with their substantial wealth and influence, answered the Council's call for better education of priests and bishops, with each empire subsidizing the construction of multiple seminaries in their realms. As new religious orders began their ministry to renew the Church, they found welcome homes in Italy, France, and Portugal, with many orders sending missionaries to the New World in greater numbers. In Italy, Emperor Rochus declared his empire to be the Defender of the Faith, and generously funded and supported the Capuchin Friars.
Meanwhile, von Stettin's teachings continued to spread rapidly through Germany, Brunswick, and Northern Bavaria, finding particular traction among the culturally German regions of central Europe. In Germany, a large band of anti-Catholic insurgents attempted to forcefully occupy cathedrals and force out the local clergy, which drew a response from the German army to suppress the uprising. Despite this, however, Germany officially adopted Reformed Christianity as its state religion less than a decade after the uprisings.
A similar revolt took place in England, where militant Protestants took up arms against the Catholic monarchy. The English army was outnumbered by the revolting Protestants, but Rochus stepped in, acting true to his title as Defender of the Faith, and committed 20,000 Italian soldiers to defeating the rebel forces. But as in Germany, the violence was a symbol of changing opinions -- in 1582, the aging Queen Aelfflaed I York declared that England would be a Protestant kingdom. In response, Rochus' successor Valdichis I dissolved Italy's alliance with England severed their royal marriage ties, declaring that Italy would have no part in cooperating with heretics.
By the turn of 1600 AD, the British Isles were entirely Protestant, and both Germany and Brunswick had adopted Stettinist Christianity. Fueled by state support and passionate evangelists, Protestantism began encroaching into Northwestern France, while the Reform movement slowly spread into Scandinavia. The tension and conflict of Christianity's division had begun to take a more clear shape, setting the stage for more future conflicts.
Expanding Kingdoms
The second half of the 1500's saw the expansion of two major European kingdoms, each of which underwent a particular change in identity as it grew. After France's second defeat at the hands of Italy, Navarra had been released from French rule and become a sovereign Iberian state. In the late 1570's, a final war effort saw Navarra destroyed, with the province of Navarra occupied by Italy, and the remainder of the small kingdom taken by Portugal.
With the elimination of Navarra, Portugal now controlled all of Iberia except for the Lombard regions in northern Aragon, occupied by the descendants of the Crusaders since the 900's. With no other nations competing for power in the region, Queen Estevainha I de Cantabria proclaimed herself Queen of All Spain in 1586, marking her family's ascension from Galicia to Portugal and ultimately to the united Spanish kingdom.
Far to the north, King Beorhtfrith II York had inherited the throne of England, and set his sights on unifying the Isles. The small Irish kingdoms had been annexed into England many years prior, but Scotland, despite its defeats against the English army, still clung to its holdings in the north while expanding multiple colonies in the New World.
Beorhtfrith put an end to that, waging a short war to definitively end Scottish independence once and for all. Not long after, Beorhtfrith proclaimed the Kingdom of Great Britain, declaring himself the sole ruler of the British Isles. The conquest of the Isles meant that Great Britain was now the world's greatest Protestant kingdom, giving the movement a safe haven from which to grow and expand.
The late 1500's also saw the first conflict between the Byzantine Empire and mainland Europe, when Emperor Valerios II of the Wendish House Lechowicz invaded Jerusalem. With the support of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, the Byzantine army quickly occupied the Holy Land, and turned to face its allies. The war stretched on for many years, and the Byzantine Empire proved its overwhelming military power by engaging -- and defeating -- France, Abyssinia, Germany, Ruthenia, and Jerusalem simultaneously.
When Jerusalem had fallen, the army pressed southward, knocking Abyssinia out of the war early on in exchange for minor territorial concessions. Valerios then brought his men back home, where they marched northward into Ruthenia and engaged troops there.
The French attempted to mount a counterattack, landing over 50,000 men on the inner Mediterranean coast. When they arrived, however, they found more than enough disciplined Imperial soldiers waiting to expel them, and France was forced to concede Suez to Valerios along with other concessions. The actual financial and territorial gain for Byzantium was minimal, but Valerios had sent a powerful message: that none of the great European powers could match the armed might of the Byzantine Empire.
Political map of Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa, circa 1600 AD
