Anglo-French War (1627–1629)

Anglo-French War (1627–1629) forms the international framework within which the novel’s private adventures become matters of state. The conflict is presented not as a distant historical backdrop but as a living system of ports, fleets, letters, alliances, hunger, military commands, and political suspicion. Its decisive result is the isolation and eventual surrender of La Rochelle, while its human consequences include the destruction of Buckingham’s expedition, the exposure of diplomatic networks, and the increasing danger surrounding Anne of Austria and her allies.

Religious and Political Causes

The immediate French objective is La Rochelle, the last major refuge left to the French Huguenots after Henry IV had granted fortified places of safety to the Calvinists. The city therefore represents more than a rebellious stronghold: it is the remaining bulwark of Calvinism, where religious dissent can mingle with civil revolt and foreign war. Its destruction promises to consolidate the authority of the French crown and to remove a persistent internal challenge during the reign of Louis XIII.

La Rochelle also possesses a strategic maritime importance. Its harbor is described as the last port in France still open to England. By closing it, Cardinal Richelieu would not only strike at French Calvinism but also sever an English channel of access to the kingdom. The campaign consequently joins religious uniformity, royal centralization, and Anglo-French rivalry. Foreign participation makes the city an international focus: Spaniards, Englishmen, Italian malcontents, adventurers, and soldiers of fortune from different confessions gather under the Protestant standard, creating a network whose branches extend across Europe.

The war is further intensified by personal motives at the summit of power. Buckingham claims to defend England’s honor, but his conduct is also driven by vengeance and by his determination to enter France as a conqueror rather than as an ambassador. Richelieu and Buckingham thus pursue state policies that are inseparable from private antagonism. The narrative reduces the vast contest between two kingdoms to a painfully intimate stake: a favorable look from Anne of Austria. That contrast gives the war its characteristic irony, since fleets, armies, and national honor are mobilized around a conflict shaped by love, jealousy, and revenge.

Armies, Fleets, and the Île de Ré

Buckingham initially gains the advantage by appearing unexpectedly before the Île de Ré with ninety vessels and nearly twenty thousand men. He surprises the French commander, the Comte de Toiras, and lands after a bloody conflict. Toiras withdraws into the citadel of Saint-Martin, while a hundred men reinforce the smaller fort of La Prée. The English landing transforms Buckingham’s private vengeance into a serious military threat to the French siege operations around La Rochelle.

The expedition depends on maritime movement, and the sea repeatedly proves as important as battlefield courage. Milady’s later arrival in England occurs amid the same machinery of war: newly built vessels are launched at Portsmouth, Buckingham appears on the jetty in a richly decorated uniform surrounded by a brilliant staff, and the harbor is filled with preparations that one woman has been sent to destroy. The war’s scale is therefore measured not only in soldiers but in ships, ports, officers, and the movement of agents between England and France.

French strategy eventually benefits from conditions that weaken the English force without requiring an immediate decisive assault. The English soldiers suffer from poor food, living on salt meat and bad biscuit, while many become invalids. Rough winter seas destroy small vessels, and the shore is covered at every tide with the wreckage of pinnaces, roberges, and feluccas. These logistical pressures make Buckingham’s position increasingly untenable. His continued presence on the island becomes an act of obstinacy, and even without a major French attack he would eventually have been compelled to raise the siege.

The French command nevertheless chooses decisive action when Toiras reports that the enemy is preparing another assault. The English are driven back step by step, defeated in successive encounters and beaten during the passage of the Île de Loie. They are forced to re-embark, leaving approximately two thousand men dead, including five colonels, three lieutenant colonels, two hundred and fifty captains, and twenty gentlemen of rank. Four cannon and sixty flags are captured and carried to Paris, where they are displayed with ceremony in the arches of Notre-Dame. The victory produces public thanksgiving throughout France and grants Richelieu temporary freedom to continue the siege without immediate English interference.

Intelligence, Alliances, and Political Exposure

The apparent French security created by the English defeat proves temporary. An envoy of Buckingham named Montague is captured, and evidence emerges of a league directed against France involving the German Empire, Spain, England, and Lorraine. The alliance confirms that the conflict extends beyond a bilateral quarrel. French policy is confronting a network of continental and maritime powers whose connections can alter the military balance and threaten the kingdom from several directions.

Documents discovered in Buckingham’s lodging strengthen the danger. The papers confirm the alliance and, in Richelieu’s view, seriously compromise Madame de Chevreuse and consequently the queen. The political effect is greater than the military defeat itself, because the captured correspondence turns a battlefield crisis into a question of treason, influence, and court conspiracy. Richelieu, as a minister exercising near-despotic responsibility, responds by placing all his resources at the service of intelligence, listening for the smallest report from the major kingdoms of Europe.

The war also depends upon the control of information within La Rochelle. The besieged city repeatedly sends messengers to Buckingham, while Buckingham sends spies toward the Rochellais. Captured agents are tried swiftly, and Richelieu’s single-word sentence is death by hanging. The king sometimes watches these executions, finding in them a grim diversion that helps him endure the boredom of the siege, even while he repeatedly speaks of returning to Paris. Intelligence therefore becomes both a military instrument and a theatrical demonstration of authority.

One captured letter reveals the extremity of the city’s condition. It reports not merely that relief must arrive within fifteen days or the city will surrender, but that without aid within that period the inhabitants will already be dead of hunger. Buckingham has become the Rochellais’ sole hope, almost a messianic figure whose failure will destroy their courage as well as their supplies. Richelieu consequently waits with particular impatience for news from England confirming that Buckingham will not come.

War and the Private Plot

The war’s international movements repeatedly open routes for the novel’s private missions. D’Artagnan reaches Dover after a difficult sea crossing, arriving at half past ten in the morning after the vessel has anchored in the harbor. With Planchet, he immediately takes post horses and travels onward to London, using Buckingham’s name as his only guide because he knows neither the city nor a word of English. The journey demonstrates how military and diplomatic infrastructure—ships, harbors, post horses, and official residences—can be seized by individual actors pursuing a secret objective.

Buckingham’s own political position is equally vulnerable to the emotional conflict behind the war. Anne of Austria writes to him through Laporte, warning that his life is threatened and urging him to countermand the armaments being prepared against France. She argues that the war, publicly attributed to religion, is widely believed to conceal his love for her, and that it may bring catastrophe upon both kingdoms. Her appeal exposes the double nature of the conflict: public policy speaks in the language of religion and national defense, while private desire supplies a concealed motive.

The war also creates the conditions for the escalation of Milady’s operations. D’Artagnan’s successes against her have already damaged her position, and the international crisis supplies her with targets, routes, and opportunities. Her movement toward England is set against the sight of Buckingham’s military preparations, which she interprets as a vast force that her own mission must undermine. At the same time, the political papers, the queen’s danger, and Richelieu’s authorization make personal revenge inseparable from the strategic contest between the kingdoms.

Defeat, Surrender, and Historical Consequence

Buckingham’s death removes the English leader on whom La Rochelle depends. The King of England, Charles I, tries to conceal the news from the Rochellais, closes the ports, and prevents vessels from sailing until the army Buckingham had been assembling has departed. The order comes too late to stop two ships, one of which carries Milady, but the effort itself reveals how seriously the English government fears the effect of the duke’s death upon the besieged city.

With no English fleet and no promised diversion, La Rochelle can no longer sustain resistance. After a siege lasting a year, the city capitulates on 28 October 1628. Its surrender marks the decisive French success of the conflict as represented in the novel: the last major Calvinist refuge is overcome, English intervention has failed, and Richelieu’s strategic and political objectives have been substantially achieved.

The aftermath is staged as national triumph. Louis XIII enters Paris on 23 December 1628 beneath verdant arches and is received as though he had conquered a foreign enemy rather than fellow Frenchmen. The ceremony reveals the ideological transformation produced by the war: an internal religious and political struggle is presented as victorious royal warfare. While the court celebrates, the individual survivors move into altered futures—d’Artagnan takes possession of his command, and Porthos leaves the service—showing how the international crisis closes one military chapter even as its personal consequences continue.