Martin Luther ignited the Protestant Reformation in 1517 by objecting both to specific actions of the Roman Catholic church (the selling of indulgences and church offices, nepotism) and to doctrines such as the authority of the pope, a celibate priesthood and the intercession of saints. Although these objections had been around for several hundred years, this time princes and entire nations embraced the reforms. As an unintended consequence, between 1524 and 1648, Europe was devastated by a series of conflicts that are described as religious wars between Catholic and Protestant believers.
However, it is easiest to understand these battles as power struggles between groups identified by their religious affiliation. People were not fighting over doctrine, per se. The answer is the same whether you ask "Who chose to become a Protestant?," or "Whose political and economic interests were exploited by monarchs supported by the Roman Catholic church?" The English famously become Anglicans after the Pope--influenced by Catherine's powerful nephew, Charles V (about whom I wrote yesterday)--said "no to Henry VIII's petition to divorce Queen Catherine. The French "Wars of Religion"--fought between 1562 -1598--was a struggle among noble factions over the throne of France. The Netherlands fought for their independence from the Spanish Habsburgs in the Eighty Years War (1568 - 1648.) In England, Scotland and Ireland, Catholics, Anglicans and Protestants battled over the relationship between monarch and parliament.
The Thirty Years War (1618 - 1648), the most devastating conflict of all and the last major religious conflict, saw the Swedish empire, Bohemia and the German Palatinate rebelling against the Habsburg's Holy Roman Empire. France's interest, surrounded by Habsburg domains, lay in weakening Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, thus Catholic France supported the Protestants. At first the support was just financial--from 1631, Cardinal Richelieu gave the Swedes 1,000,000 livres a year to keep an army in Germany to fight the Habsburgs. But, in 1635, after a series of defeats, the Protestant German princes sued for peace. Sweden would be unable to continue the war by herself, so Richelieu declared war on Spain (1635) and the Holy Roman Empire (1636).
In the end, everyone (except the Dutch) were bankrupt. Entire regions were devastated; some estimate that the population of the German states was reduced by 25-40% through famine, disease and the predations of mercenary armies who preyed on villages. The Swedish army (supported by France) may have destroyed as many as one-third of German towns. The period was also marked by witch-hunts, as residents of devastated lands attributed their misfortunes to supernatural causes. Thousands, of men, women and children were burned at the stake.
The Peace of Westphalia, established by several peace treaties negotiated in 1648, laid the legal foundation of the modern nation-state. Under these treaties, states were sovereign and equal, and messing in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state was forbidden. Residents of a given state were understood to be subject to the laws and edicts of that state. Their primary allegiance was political, not religious. Protestants and Catholics were declared to be equal, and each sovereign prince had the authority to decide the religion of his state. The horrors resulting from the use of mercenary soldiers and the establishment of state authority led to the establishment of better disciplined national armies.
A further consequence of the Thirty Years War was the realignment of the power structure of Europe. France came out of the struggle stronger (not surprisingly because Cardinal Mazarin, representing the interests of ten-year old Louis XIV, was the main brain behind the terms of the treaties). Sweden was also stronger. Habsburg Spain was weaker; the Dutch had their independence from Spain. The second half of the 17th century would be the the golden age of the Dutch Republic. The treaty limited the power of the Holy Roman Emperor; the German-speaking states in the Holy Roman Empire had more autonomy. However, Austria itself succeeded in suppressing Protestantism within its borders, and its army was stronger, still capable of facing the threat of the Ottoman empire on its Eastern border. England and Prussia were finally on the European map.
I summarize these events because this was the turbulent and changing world in which Louis XIV became King. His mother, Anne of Austria, was a Spanish princess, the child of Phillip III. Her primary advisor (and, possibly, secret husband) was the Cardinal Mazarin, born in the Kingdom of Naples, a part of Italy which was part of the Kingdom of Aragon. Some of the formative events of Louis's early life play out against this background of shifting alliances.
Other than the map, the paintings illustrate the horrors of the 80 Years Dutch War of Independence (the four paintings by Vranx, a Flemish painter) and two battles. In the first, the French, led by Louis de Bourbon, Prince Condé, won a fabulous victory at Rocroi in 1643. In the second, the Holy Roman Empire decisively defeated the Bohemians at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620.