Louis XIV of France fought against the rest of Europe over James II of England's right to the English throne. The war caused colonists in America to launch attacks on French colonies namely Quebec and Montreal
King James II of England, unlike his profligate brother, Charles II, was extremely religious, and his religion was that of Rome. The large majority of the people of England were Protestants; but they would have submitted to a Catholic king had he not used his official power to convert the nation to Catholicism. From the time of James’s accession, in 1685, the unrest increased, until, three years later, the opposition was so formidable that the monarch fled from his kingdom and took refuge in France. The daughter of James and her husband, the Prince of Orange, became the joint sovereigns of England as William and Mary. This movement is known in history as the English Revolution.
Louis XIV, the king of France, was a Catholic and in full sympathy with James. Moreover, he denied the right of a people to change sovereigns, and espoused the cause of James; and war between the two nations followed. This war was reflected in America, as King William rejected an offer of colonial neutrality, and it is known as “King William’s War.” The English colonies had long watched the French encroachments on the north; the French determined to hold the St. Lawrence country, and to extend their power over the vast basin of the Mississippi; and each was jealoous of the other concerning the fisheries and the fur trade. To these differences must be added an intense religious feeling. The English colonies were almost wholly Protestant except Maryland, and even in Maryland the Protestants were in a large majority. New France was purely Catholic, and the two forms of Christianity had not yet learned to dwell together, or near together, in harmony.
