About how plausible would the following series of events be:
-Sometime in the 1540's-1550's, a French king gets into a major spat with the Pope. As a result, he declares that he, as king, shall be the sole head of the church in France, with final authority over the appointment of clergy and all religious issues. Appeals to the Pope are banned.
-Many French nobles oppose this-both because they're devout Catholics, and also because they fear that having control over the French church and its revenues will give the king more power at the noble's expense. Conversely, an influential minority of Calvinist nobles and merchants see this as an opening, and support the king. Several Calvinists are appointed to influential positions at court, and several priests perceived as being sympathetic to Calvinism become bishops. The French church's official doctrine, though muddled and unclear, begins to drift in a Calvinist direction.
-A group of staunchly Catholic nobles, led by the House of Guise, form a Catholic League in open defiance of the French king. The Catholic League invites the Spanish to invade and replace the French king with...well, who is kind of unclear, but at any rate the Spanish take the opportunity to invade France, and the Catholic League openly rebel in support of the Spanish.
-The resulting Franco-Spanish war ends in a stalemate. The Catholic League nobles are condemned as traitors and either executed or exiled to Spain with their French lands/titles confiscated. This massively discredits Catholics and Catholicism, and the Calvinist faction at court gains enough influence to get an open Calvinist appointed Archbishop of Reims (by now seen as head of the French Church). Monasticism is banned, with all monasteries dissolved and the land appropriated by the crown, and the new Archbishop yanks the church in a strongly Calvinist direction.
-Lots of French peasants-and even a few nobles who escaped the purge of the Catholic League-get mightily offended when Calvinist mobs, under royal protection, start storming through French churches smashing statues of Mary, burning prayer books, and the like. A round of peasant revolts break out, which are brutally suppressed, inspiring more revolts. Large sections of the nobility see this as a chance to challenge royal power and begin supporting the Catholic side, and Spain also aids the Catholic rebels.
-Eventually, unable to fully suppress the religious bloodshed, and pressed by the more moderate end of the anti-Calvinist party to compromise, the French king locks the most prominent Calvinist-sympathizing and Catholic-sympathizing clergymen in a room and orders them to create a statement of doctrine they can mutually agree on. Eventually, and after much prodding by the king, they issue an official Doctrine of the French Church. Everyone agrees that the King is indeed the sole authority in all religious matters (this is partially motivated by a desire on the part of all the clergymen in the room to keep their heads attached to their necks, but support for the Pope has by this point become associated with support for crown's mortal enemy, Spain). The Calvinist party also pushes through an explicit denunciation of monasticism and clerical celibacy (married priests and the dissolution of monasteries having become inescapable facts by this point). Beyond that, though...the Official Doctrine is a spectacular example of using tons of big, complicated words, strung together in elaborate sentences, to say as little of substance as possible. In particular, the Doctine's statements on Holy Communion, Apostolic succession and the exact role of priests, predestination, and prayers to Mary and the saints are all masterpieces in opaque ambiguity. Nevertheless, the document is approved, and everyone in France is ordered to swear an oath upholding it, under pain of imprisonment.
-Because being a member of the Church of France is now a requirement to participate in public life, and because the church's Official Answers to most doctrinal questions are so ambiguous, the Church develops distinct "High Church" and "Evangelical" factions, which mostly sort themselves into distinct parishes and do their best to ignore each other. Meanwhile, significant minorities of both Catholics and Calvinists refuse to join the new church. The Catholic minority, seen as a potential fifth column for Spain, is subject to regular crackdowns and executions of prominent members, with the majority eventually choosing to emigrate. The staunch Calvinists, lacking a foreign patron, are seen as less of a threat but still subject to occasional persecution. A few leave for the Netherlands, Germany, or England, but way less than the number of Huguenots expelled IOTL. Eventually their churches come to be de facto tolerated and, owing to the large number of Huguenot merchants and businessmen, they gain significant power over France's economy.
Thoughts? What effects might this moderate Protestantism have on the direction of the French enlightenment. Will people like Voltaire still be atheists and vehemently anti-church when the church itself is a much less powerful, and more moderate organization? Might we see Catholic and (non-Church of France) Protestant colonies established under the patronage of sympathetic noblemen? Other ideas?
-Sometime in the 1540's-1550's, a French king gets into a major spat with the Pope. As a result, he declares that he, as king, shall be the sole head of the church in France, with final authority over the appointment of clergy and all religious issues. Appeals to the Pope are banned.
-Many French nobles oppose this-both because they're devout Catholics, and also because they fear that having control over the French church and its revenues will give the king more power at the noble's expense. Conversely, an influential minority of Calvinist nobles and merchants see this as an opening, and support the king. Several Calvinists are appointed to influential positions at court, and several priests perceived as being sympathetic to Calvinism become bishops. The French church's official doctrine, though muddled and unclear, begins to drift in a Calvinist direction.
-A group of staunchly Catholic nobles, led by the House of Guise, form a Catholic League in open defiance of the French king. The Catholic League invites the Spanish to invade and replace the French king with...well, who is kind of unclear, but at any rate the Spanish take the opportunity to invade France, and the Catholic League openly rebel in support of the Spanish.
-The resulting Franco-Spanish war ends in a stalemate. The Catholic League nobles are condemned as traitors and either executed or exiled to Spain with their French lands/titles confiscated. This massively discredits Catholics and Catholicism, and the Calvinist faction at court gains enough influence to get an open Calvinist appointed Archbishop of Reims (by now seen as head of the French Church). Monasticism is banned, with all monasteries dissolved and the land appropriated by the crown, and the new Archbishop yanks the church in a strongly Calvinist direction.
-Lots of French peasants-and even a few nobles who escaped the purge of the Catholic League-get mightily offended when Calvinist mobs, under royal protection, start storming through French churches smashing statues of Mary, burning prayer books, and the like. A round of peasant revolts break out, which are brutally suppressed, inspiring more revolts. Large sections of the nobility see this as a chance to challenge royal power and begin supporting the Catholic side, and Spain also aids the Catholic rebels.
-Eventually, unable to fully suppress the religious bloodshed, and pressed by the more moderate end of the anti-Calvinist party to compromise, the French king locks the most prominent Calvinist-sympathizing and Catholic-sympathizing clergymen in a room and orders them to create a statement of doctrine they can mutually agree on. Eventually, and after much prodding by the king, they issue an official Doctrine of the French Church. Everyone agrees that the King is indeed the sole authority in all religious matters (this is partially motivated by a desire on the part of all the clergymen in the room to keep their heads attached to their necks, but support for the Pope has by this point become associated with support for crown's mortal enemy, Spain). The Calvinist party also pushes through an explicit denunciation of monasticism and clerical celibacy (married priests and the dissolution of monasteries having become inescapable facts by this point). Beyond that, though...the Official Doctrine is a spectacular example of using tons of big, complicated words, strung together in elaborate sentences, to say as little of substance as possible. In particular, the Doctine's statements on Holy Communion, Apostolic succession and the exact role of priests, predestination, and prayers to Mary and the saints are all masterpieces in opaque ambiguity. Nevertheless, the document is approved, and everyone in France is ordered to swear an oath upholding it, under pain of imprisonment.
-Because being a member of the Church of France is now a requirement to participate in public life, and because the church's Official Answers to most doctrinal questions are so ambiguous, the Church develops distinct "High Church" and "Evangelical" factions, which mostly sort themselves into distinct parishes and do their best to ignore each other. Meanwhile, significant minorities of both Catholics and Calvinists refuse to join the new church. The Catholic minority, seen as a potential fifth column for Spain, is subject to regular crackdowns and executions of prominent members, with the majority eventually choosing to emigrate. The staunch Calvinists, lacking a foreign patron, are seen as less of a threat but still subject to occasional persecution. A few leave for the Netherlands, Germany, or England, but way less than the number of Huguenots expelled IOTL. Eventually their churches come to be de facto tolerated and, owing to the large number of Huguenot merchants and businessmen, they gain significant power over France's economy.
Thoughts? What effects might this moderate Protestantism have on the direction of the French enlightenment. Will people like Voltaire still be atheists and vehemently anti-church when the church itself is a much less powerful, and more moderate organization? Might we see Catholic and (non-Church of France) Protestant colonies established under the patronage of sympathetic noblemen? Other ideas?