There are many historical works which might be useful to demonstrate the necessity of the Protestant Reformation.
Calvin's
Institutes, Book IV comes to mind, which compares the true church and the false (see also the Belgic Confession, Art. 27-29 or the Westminster Confession, Chap. 25) with special focus on the ever-growing tyranny of the bishop of Rome.
Foxe's
Book of Martyrs shows the persecution by Rome towards Protestants. (It is difficult to be reconciled to a church that is trying to kill you for adhering to the gospel.)
A study of the life of Martin Luther (Roland Bainton's biography is quite good) shows how he was treated (excommunicated) by the Pope and why he wrote those 95 Theses.
J.A. Wylie's
History of Protestantism and
History of the Papacy provide a long view through history of how things came to be.
William Webster's
Church of Rome at the Bar of History is a good more modern resource along those lines.
I have provided other Roman Catholic apologetics links
here including Matthew Poole's
Dialogue Between a Popish Priest and an English Protestant and
The Nullity of the Romish Faith; Charles Chiniquy's
Fifty Years in the Church of Rome; Pierre du Moulin's
The Anatomy of the Mass; Loraine Boettner's
Roman Catholicism; and Charles Hodge's Letter to Pope Pius IX testifying to the grounds of Protestant separation from Rome. Turretin and Owen have both justified Protestant separation from Rome from the charge of schism, as I recall, and a highly-regarded work on that subject, which ought to be reprinted, is Jean Daille's
Apology of the Reformed Churches.
It is difficult to avoid the term "Antichrist" since Protestants were virtually unamimous in viewing Rome as such and this view permeates their writings. Their separation from Rome was not separation from another denomination because of mere difference of opinion over church government or baptism, but based on the Biblical admonition to join with the true church and depart from that which is false (corrupted, usurped). But they were careful to uphold the doctrine of the true "catholic" church in opposition to the charge of schism by pointing to the marks of the church as taught by Scripture and comparing them with the dogmas of Rome (a useful resource for Roman Catholics to study is the decrees of the Council of Trent with all of its anathemas of Protestants or perhaps the Index of Prohibited Books which banned the Bible in the vernacular -- the words of the Church of Rome are self-condemning). The first Reformers and their followers asserted that they were not teaching a new gospel but recovering the Biblical and apostolic gospel which had been corrupted by Rome. Thus, it was Rome that separated itself from the true church, not the Reformers. Hence, the term Reformation.
