Dumas begins his novel in April 1625 and ends it in August 1628, just after the death of the Duke of Buckingham and shortly before the surrender of La Rochelle. This time period falls within the reign of King Louis XIII, who appears as a significant character in the novel. King Louis ascended to the throne in 1610 after the sudden death of his father, but he was only a boy of 9. His mother, Queen Marie de Medici, ruled as regent until 1617. King Louis gradually became uncomfortable with the direction his mother and her Italian advisers were taking the kingdom, and strongly asserted his own autonomy and rule. This assertion of power marked two of the key themes that would dominate the rest of Louis XIII's rule: centralizing and strengthening royal power, and distrust and rivalry with foreign powers.
Beginning in 1624, when he became chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu dominated the political world of the French court. Richelieu helped King Louis to curb the power and privileges of the French nobles, insisting on the ultimate and absolute authority of the crown above all else. While he worked tirelessly in the service of the king, Richelieu knew that strengthening Louis' power also strengthened his own. One political arena which required much of Richelieu's attention was the threat of the powerful Hapsburg empire, which ruled Austria and Spain. Tensions between France and the Hapsburg empire took on a particular weight at the French court, since King Louis had married a Hapsburg princess, Queen Anne of Austria, in 1615. As a foreigner with ties to an enemy kingdom, Queen Anne was isolated at court, and Richelieu's foreign policies often ran directly contrary to the interests of her family. There were known to be tensions between the Queen and Richelieu, exacerbated by the fact that she did not produce an heir until 1638.
Internal religious tensions were also a significant problem for King Louis and for Richelieu, who was often the one effectively making decisions about how to deal with these challenges. France was a Catholic country (Richelieu was a Catholic clergyman who had gained power both within the Church and the secular state), but it was also home to a significant Protestant minority known as the Huguenots. In 1598, King Henry IV (father of Louis XIII) had issued the Edict of Nantes, protecting Huguenot rights. By the 1620s, the Huguenots were regularly launching revolts and vying for greater power, especially from their stronghold in the city of La Rochelle.
England (a Protestant kingdom) noted the Huguenot tensions with interest, especially after France had refused to ally with them against their mutual enemy, the Hapsburgs. In 1627, King Charles I sent George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham, to La Rochelle to incite rebellion among the Hugenots. This led to a year-long siege of La Rochelle by French royal forces. Historically speaking, this war had nothing to do with Queen Anne, although Dumas uses a real conflict to create an exciting backdrop for the psychological conflicts of his novel.
