Evaluate the Religious Wars of 16th century France, the English Civil War, and the Thirty Years War

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Date: October 25, 2011
The Religious Wars of 16th Century France, the English Civil War, and the Thirty Years War- were they primarily religious wars or dynastic conflicts? What role did religion and dynastic factors play in each conflict
Introduction
Majors wars have been fought in history and most have been brought about by the fight for power. On the other hand issues such as politics, religion, social and economic factors stand out to start wars. Religion played role of a political vehicle and dynasty helped fuel the vehicle as the heirs to the throne would more often take after their predecessor`s religion which was more often Catholicism. This essay focuses on the Religious Wars of 16th Century France, the English Civil War, and the Thirty Years War; and the role of religion and dynasties in the wars.
The Religious Wars of 16th Century France, the English Civil War, and the Thirty Years Wars were more of religious conflicts than dynastic wars; this is because they involved Catholics and Protestants. Although in the process, power struggles come out as the two religious groups struggled to have one of their own rule the various kingdoms. For instance between 1618 and 1625 during the thirty years` war, Philip III- the Catholic king of Spain, Maximilian and other Catholic Monarchs sided with the King of Bohemia-Ferdinand II- in a fight against protestants and finally succeed to convert inhabitants of Bohemia and Moravia to Catholics. The same is seen with King Charles 1 of England who technically married a catholic princess in 1625 to gunner support from the religion.
He used his influence with the catholic religion to survive even when the parliament of those times tried to reduce his powers by imposing financial sanctions; where he had great support from Catholics like in Ireland he conquered and ruled but failed in staunch protestant zones such as in Scotland. Similar experiences occurred in France during the reign of King Francis I, starting the 15th Century whereby war broke out between Catholics and Protestants following activism by Luther and Calvin; the wars led to a massive massacre of Protestants in 1572 (Meyer). King Henri IV aided the situation by issuance of Edict of Nantes in 1598; he was later killed by a catholic fanatic (Acton, 56).
The English Civil War
The English civil war happened from the 1642 - 1651 where conflicts and political manipulations were experienced between roundheads (parliamentarians) and Royalists (royalists). The first war was 1642 -1646; second was during 1648 - 1649 where King Charles I supporters were against the long parliament. The third was between 1649-1651 where King Charles II, supporters were against the parliament. Eventually the war was won by the parliamentarians in 1651 at the battle of Worcester.
This led to King Charles I to be tried and executed, in addition his son went to exile and was replaced by the monarchy, then the commonwealth and ...