I think it should also be noted that with the rise and corruption of the Catholic Church, another belief that was widely held in Protestant circles was that the Papacy was what the Number of the Beast referred to (and no, I'm not going to go into all the reasons but suffice it to say that it was a pretty decent argument). In fact, at one point, it was pretty much the standard belief among Protestants, and wasn't until the Catholic Church vehemently denied it and offered a rather comical prophetic interpretation of the Book of Revelation to get the accusation away from them and onto someone else that your particular view became popular.