Those that refused to adhere to the false teachings of the Roman church were tortured, jailed and even murdered. The Roman church's persecution of the Church was severe.

The people that survived the Roman church's murderous persecution began new sects of the Church.

But, even though the group of mutiny-minded followers refused the majority of what the Roman church taught, they kept her pagan festivals, rituals, and symbolism.

Be Blessed:-)
References :
"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments (elements) of the world, and not after Christ" – Colossians 2:8.

http://christianforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=26
References :

Now for the full story.

In western europe there had been literally hundreds and hundreds of years of repression and totalitarian reign by regemes kowtowing to the authority of the Catholic Church. There had been literally 500 years of the Inquisition and other malicious practices of the Catholic Church. Hundreds of thousands of "heretics" were executed and even entire towns were wiped out. (And this does not even include the Crucades, some of which wiped out entire CHRISTIAN cities in eastern Europe at the instigation of the reigning pope because they balked at the pope's authority).

Let us also indeed look at England. Just one minor example: the first person there who translated the Bible from Latin into English was imprisoned for the act.

Sure there were a few "martyrs for the faith" but the very overwhelming vast majority were just quite happy to get out from under the repression and horrific policies and deliberate pain and suffering inflicted upon the poeple by the Catholic Church and those operating under their imprimator.

In some later centuries it was in part the 300 years of witch-hunting, the burning and incarceration of heretics, and other practices which R.H. Robbins called "the shocking nightmare, the foulest crime and deepest shame of western civilization," that ensured the european abandonment of the belief in magic. And the authority of the Catholic Church. In part, the Church created the elaborate concept of devil worship and then used the persecution of it to wipe out dissent, subordinate the individual to authoritarian control, and openly denigrate women. All through the ages the Catholic Church and its adherents spoke of women as barely human. Even Thomas Acquinas stated that woman was a "mistake of creation."

And witch-hunting was only a part of the story. Please read some history which is rampent with the totalitarian barbarisms off the Catholic Church.

Both Protestants and Catholics are very good at rewriting history to suit their purposes, but in main it was just a ripe time for countries and the people in those countries to finally wrest authority (expecially temporal authority) away from a weakening Catholic Church.

To give a modern day equivalent to what happened. Look at what happened in most of the countries in Eastern Europe during the fall of the Soviate dominance of that area of the world. No one today would even pretend to contend that all these poor people were "FORCED TO RENOUNCE COMMUNISM." The situation during the Reformation (and counter Reformation) was drawn out over a much greater time but the motivation of the people was similar.
References :
For example read: "The Dark Side of Christian Histroy" by Helen Ellerby

Take England as an example: people who remained true to Catholicism were persecuted for generations and many were martyred.

With love in Christ.
References :

The Protestant movement was really a philosophical one, in that we were coming out of a period where the philosophical theories of scholasticism had been taught which led to secular Humanism of the sixteenth century.

The Protestant movement was primarily fueled by a desire of certain Humanist scholars to create a religion that had as its focus a god that serves man instead of the orthodox Christian faith where man served God. It was a "me" centered faith rather than a "God" centered faith. To accomplish this orthodox Christianity was syncretically blended with Humanism. That plus the encouragement of the secular princes using the movement for reasons of greed fueled and kept alive the rebellion against Christ's Church. God bless!

In Christ
Fr. Joseph
References :

http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/wittenberg-luther.html
References :

Those around Jesus where murdered less one, you want to know what it really said, then you have to go to Italy for that and face the mafia.

The bible you have is not the real book nor is it the meaning but it is a bias interpitation and that is all you have is a translation made out of hearsay and bias.
References :
Ankaboot