(Player character names in bold face.)

The Reign of Henri IV
Louis XIII’s father was a strong king who had strengthened the monarchy considerably (at the expense of the rights of the nobles), but even the nobles conceded that such concentration of power was necessary in order to stem the tide of religious wars that gripped France in the 1500s. The Reformation left France a country divided between Catholicism and Protestantism. (The Protestants were known as Huguenots.) The royal family was officially Catholic, and France was regarded as the second greatest Catholic power after the empire of the Hapsburgs (Spain and the Holy Roman Empire), but much of its population and many of its greatest noble houses were Huguenots. Henri IV ended the Wars of Religion with a document called the Edict of Nantes, which granted rights of worship and political assembly to the Huguenots as long as they recognized and fulfilled their duties to the Crown.

Henri’s second wife was Marie de Medici, a woman steeped in intrigue, but she gave Henri what he wanted: offspring (three boys and three girls). In 1610 Henri was assassinated, stabbed in the street. His assassin, Ravaillac, insisted under the most strenuous tortures that he acted alone, and though conspiracy theories were rampant, no one else was ever brought to trial. Henri’s nine-year-old son was crowned Louis XIII, and his mother was appointed Regent to rule until Louis reached his majority.

The Regency of the Queen Mother
1611: Young Prince Nicholas dies, leaving only Louis and Prince Gaston as Henri’s sons. Their cousin, Henri II, Prince de Condé, is next in line to the throne.

1614: In order to improve relations with Spain, the Queen Mother (Marie de Medici) resolves to marry Louis to Anne of Austria, the Infanta of Spain. The great nobles have been looking for an opportunity to regain some of their power, so they form up behind the Prince de Condé in opposing this marriage to the royal house of their greatest enemy. They force an Estates-General, but the clergy and the commons won’t play along and the marriage to Anne is endorsed. At this conclave Richelieu first attracts national notice with his closing speech for the clergy.

1615: Louis marries Anne of Austria. It is a loveless marriage; they have nothing whatsoever in common.
 

Meanwhile there is a great scandal involving illegal sales of offices and several ministers are thrown out. Unabashed by his failure to oppose the marriage, the mighty Prince de Condé insists on a place on the King’s Council. He moves to Paris to press his case, where he is received with open arms by the rabble. He is becoming too popular; the Queen Mother suspects that he aims for the Regency. She has Condé arrested and imprisoned for treason [expending loads of Status Points].

1616: Richelieu comes into the new cabinet as Secretary of State and Secretary of War. However, he is secondary to the Queen Mother’s favorite, an Italian of modest birth named Concini, whose elevation to the highest ranks is an open scandal. Upset over Condé’s arrest and Concini’s excesses, the great nobles begin to agitate again, and arm their followers.

The Reign of Louis XIII
1617: Louis XIII, now seventeen, stages a coup d’etat against his own mother and assumes the throne. Concini is executed, the Queen Mother is placed in internal exile, and Richelieu is sent home to Luçon under a cloud. The nobles quit agitating and fall in behind the King, hoping for strong rule to replace the sloppy practices of the Regency.
Louis calls back his father’s old councillors, but they are old men now. His main advisor is the man who had prodded him to assume the throne, his friend and Master of Hounds, Charles d’Albert de Luynes. De Luynes becomes in essence the new Concini, elevated far above his station, but with the direct ear of the King. He makes a brilliant match and marries the beautiful (and ambitious) Marie de Rohan-Montbazon (whom we will hear from again as the Duchess de Chevreuse).
 

Meanwhile, Europe is undergoing a great Catholic revival, and everywhere the Protestants are getting nervous. A new Holy Roman Emperor must be elected, but it must be someone who will maintain the balance of power in Europe, and the balance between Catholics and Protestants in the Empire. Ferdinand of Styria is the leading candidate for emperor, but he is a man the Protestants fear.

1618: The Defenestration of Prague. The Protestants of Bohemia refuse to accept Ferdinand as their king and rise in revolt, and religious conflict breaks out all across the Holy Roman Empire. It is the beginning of the terrible Thirty Years’ War.
 

The Huguenots begin a sympathetic agitation in southern and western France.

1619: The Queen Mother escapes from house arrest and begins massing troops. Louis calls on Richelieu to negotiate with her; she comes to terms and the threat is removed. Meanwhile, the Prince de Condé is restored to favor.
 

The Empire is a mess; the Hapsburgs are clearly losing control. Turkey hovers on the sidelines, ready to surge in at the first sign of a power vacuum.

1620: The Queen Mother again intrigues with the great nobles. She demands more power and masses troops; this time blood is shed as the King’s troops put down the insurrection.
 

The King decides that, as long as he has an army together (with De Luynes in charge as Constable), he will deal with the Huguenot troublemakers in the west. He occupies Pau and Béarn. The Huguenots call to England for help.

1621: The Queen Mother is once again restored to royal favor.
 

The administration of France under De Luynes is as bad as it was during the Regency. The nobles are getting restless again. Louis’s campaign against the Huguenots starts to turn sour when the siege of Montauban fails in the face of a spirited defense by the Duke de Rohan and his brother the Count de Soubise.

1622: Louis’s closest advisor, Duke de Luynes, dies of the “purple fever.” De Luynes’s wife, Marie, marries the Duke de Chevreuse of the house of Lorraine.
Louis XIII continues the war against the Huguenots. Just as it seems he has them on the ropes, German mercenaries under the Protestant leader Count Ernst von Mansfeld invade Champagne (in Eastern France). Louis must react, so he makes peace with the Huguenots (the Treaty of Montpellier) and restores their rights to almost the status quo. Huguenot leader De Rohan is given a seat on the King’s Council as the Huguenot representative.
 

Richelieu becomes a cardinal. He is still chief advisor to the Queen Mother, but has Father Joseph and his propagandists working on Louis to accept him as a key advisor to the King.

1623: James I, King of England, dies and is succeeded by Charles I. A deal had been arranged for James to marry Louis’s sister, Henriette. Now she must marry Charles.
Despite the dangers of a series of what appear to be Pirate attacks in the vicinity of Paris, in which more than a dozen minor nobles murdered and their households ransacked, Charles sends his friend and closest advisor the Duke of Buckingham to Paris to escort Henriette back to England. Buckingham has secret instructions to negotiate an alliance against Spain, but this he fails to do, possibly because he pays open court to Queen Anne. His behavior is a public scandal and a slap in the face to Louis.
 

Richelieu tells Louis that he is growing too close to Spain. The Queen Mother, who supports a Spanish alliance, breaks with Richelieu at last.

1624: De Luynes is gone and Louis’s advisors are all weaklings; he needs a strong man in the High Council. Richelieu is invited to join. Foreign policy immediately starts to shape up, with alliances and support for German Protestants and Holland to keep the Hapsburgs from gaining complete control of the Empire and the Low Countries.
The only other strong man on the Council, the minister of finance, La Vieuville, blunders into a scandal that is exacerbated by Richelieu’s expert propagandists. He is forced out and Richelieu has no real rivals left among the King’s close advisors.
 

Cardinal Bérulle and Richelieu’s friend Father Joseph announce that they plan to form a new (Catholic) order of knighthood to oppose the Turks and the Barbary Corsairs: the “Christian Militia.”

1625: Richelieu begins consolidating the royal power, which has been diluted by decades of office-selling.
 

The Huguenots and royal troops again come to blows.

1626: At Richelieu’s behest, Louis issues an edict banning duels.
 

Richelieu realizes he needs another year to strengthen the King’s hand and organize France’s resources, so he makes peace (again) with the Huguenots and signs a treaty with Spain.
 

Prince Gaston, Louis’s brother, is now 18. Richelieu urges that he be married right away, but everyone who believes Richelieu is becoming too powerful bands together to oppose him on this: Condé, the Duke de Vendôme, the Duchess de Chevreuse, even Queen Anne. Richelieu has Gaston’s pretentious “governor” (guardian) arrested and imprisoned as a “bad influence” (and as a warning to his opponents). To make sure he has control of the Bastille, Richelieu appoints Father Joseph’s brother, the Sieur du Tremblay, as the new Commandant.
 

Richelieu’s opponents plot to assassinate him and involve Gaston in the plan. There is even talk that Louis will also have to go. The Count de Chalais, one of Mme. de Chevreuse’s admirers, is persuaded to do in Richelieu, but he talks while drunk and word of the plan reaches Richelieu’s ear. He appears at the assassination site early with guards, arrests Chalais, then confronts Gaston and privately humiliates him.
 

Since Gaston is the heir, Louis makes up with him, but he has his illegitimate brother the Duke de Vendôme arrested and imprisoned. Chalais, of course, is arrested and arraigned. Realizing that his part in the plot must come out in Chalais’s trial, Gaston spills his guts and turns in the other plotters.
 

The Duchess de Chevreuse is implicated in Gaston’s testimony, so she flees to the court of the Duke de Lorraine until the whole thing blows over. Everyone else implicated is also of high Rank, so they manage to get off, especially since Richelieu has Chalais to behead. However, on the day of his execution Chalais’s friends kidnap the executioner and steal his axe. Richelieu promises a condemned man a pardon if he’ll act as headsman, so he gives it a try. He fails to do more than slash Chalais with a sword, so he calls for a cooper’s adze. With this tool it takes him only twenty-nine blows to remove Chalais’s head.

1627: The Count de Bouteville, a notably dashing cavalier, openly defies the edict against dueling. On Richelieu’s advice he is arrested and beheaded — just to show the nobility who is the boss in France.
 

With things in order at court, Louis and Richelieu resume the war against the Huguenots. England threatens to come to their aid, and in June Buckingham arrives with a fleet offshore from La Rochelle, the key Huguenot stronghold. Buckingham invades the island of Ré and invests the forts there. Some Rochellais join Buckingham’s army, but some oppose him — after all, he’s a foreign invader!
 

The King’s army marches to La Rochelle, and some hotheads on the wall fire on them. The war is on!
 

After three months’ siege Ré is relieved by the French and Buckingham withdraws. Richelieu knows he’ll be back, probably sailing right into La Rochelle to lift the King’s siege of that city. How to keep him out?

1628: The siege of La Rochelle continues. Louis and his court return to Paris for awhile to attend to affairs of state.
 

May, 1628: The time of The King’s Musketeers...