Introduction
Sparked by the BBC series I recently mentioned to LiR: The Musketeers (2014) (They now made Louis XIV the son of d'Atargnan, if I recall it well...those plotwriters of the BBC nowadays...), I wanted to make a thread about the true story of Cardinal Richelieu.
I read already in the time a very detailed work about Richelieu, which gave a whole perspective about the surrounding history including the worldpowers of that day.
https://www.amazon.com/Richelieu-Lambition-pouvoir-Michel-Carmona/dp/2213012741But by comparing the worldpowers of those days I came to Charles I as the pendant of Louis XIII.
Charles I the beheaded king
I see as worldpowers of that time Spain, France and the United Kingdom.
The Dutch Republic was also a candidate worldpower, but too small and too landlocked in my opinion as one can see later in the disaster year of 1672. And also Austria? too splitted up via the Holy Roman Empire and crippled by the Thirty Years War.
Spain with Henry IV of Castille and the (incompetent?) Olivares.
France with Louis XIII and the competent Richelieu and later the even competent Mazarin.
The United Kingdom with Charles I and the (incompetent?)
My questions:
Was it because of the circumstances that Charles I ran into disaster?
Or due to his own dogmatic sticking to his own view of reigning by the grace of God?
Or was the parliament stronger in the UK than in France? Although one had in France also under Anne of Austria the Fronde .
And perhaps as much struggle with the Protestants as in the UK? 8 religious wars in France.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Wars_of_ReligionOr were there never that extended wars of religion in the UK?
Or was it his stubborness due to his wife Henrietta Maria, the sister of Louis XIII? If you compare with his French father-in-law Henry IV converting to Catholicism as "real politik"...
Or had it all to do with Cromwell's New Army?
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-I-king-of-Great-Britain-and-IrelandKind regards, Paul.