In the 17th century Europe was divided in two spheres of influence. One belonged to the Habsburg family and the other one to the Bourbon family. To fully understand the situation of the time one must know the roots of the problem. Habsburgs were mere counts back in the 13th century and became more prominent mostly thanks to profitable and carefully planned marriages. It is how they acquired an empire where the "Sun never sets". But they have also had their share of wars and spilling blood. The Bourbons, on the other hand, were descendants of the older Capetian dynasty, arguably one of the greatest families in the Middle Ages. They arose to the French throne from the dust of the Religion Wars (1562-1598) and then went on further, rivaling the Holy Roman Empire and becoming the arch-enemies of the Habsburgs. It was a time when the few and the wealthy made decisions for the many and the poor, not giving much thought on the lives of the people "beneath them". It was also a time of huge religious tensions across Europe. Starting from then on, France and Austria fought countless wars among each other and, thanks to the geopolitical situation of them, areas most inflicted by those wars were the valley of the Rhine, southern Germany and northern Italy.
One such conflict was the Franco-Dutch War (1672-1677). France, and their ally England, invaded the Netherlands and advanced deep into the Dutch lands, but were countered by Spain, the Empire and its vassals. Austria's foremost and strongest ally at the time was the Electorate of Brandenburg. To divert its 20 000-strong army, France pressured Sweden to invade Brandenburg from the north. But the Swedes were not what they were in the days of Gustavus Adolphus or Karl X and by the end of year 1675 all their possessions in Germany were lost, save for the cities of Greifswald and Stralsund in Pomerania. Danish King Christian V, though his sister was already engaged to the Swedish King Karl XI, was encouraged by the Swedes' defeat and attacked. Danes won several naval victories and then invaded from the south and their Norwegian troops came from the west. Karl XI, young and inexperienced, turned out to be a highly capable leader and won the Scanian War. He later went on and gave Sweden the reforms that made her a force to be reckoned with well into the 18th century. In the meantime, French, led by Turenne, succeeded in their goals and defeated the Imperial armies. Their victory and influence were so great they even managed to get Swedes' their territories in northern Germany returned, all except for a small strip of land on the Oder River. But it was their gains that made the war worth to Louis XIV - Franche-Comté, territories in the Southern Netherlands as well as parts of Alsace.
But Le Roi Soleil could not sit idly for long. While the Austrians were defending Vienna from yet another Ottoman invasion, Louis decided to strike again in a brief conflict known as the War of the Reunions. Though Vienna was defended (actually saved by the Poles under King Jan Sobieski) Emperor Leopold had to compromise and accept Louis' conquests in the west to be able to defeat the Turks and liberate Hungary, something he later achieved. But apart from those two wars, the 1680s were full of change elsewhere too. In 1685, Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes, forcing several hundred thousand of Huguenots out of France. English King Charles II died in 1687, being inherited by his Catholic brother, James II. James' twenty-year-old son Edgar, Duke of Cambridge, became the Prince of Wales. [1] James was far more pro-French than his late brother and also a Catholic, something that made certain members of the Parliament very concerned. Luckily, his son was raised a Protestant in accordance with the decision of Charles II, as were his two sisters, Mary, the wife of Willem of Oranje and Anne, wife of the Danish prince Jørgen. As father and son disagreed on religion, they often disagreed on numerous other affairs and quickly became estranged from each other, something which the parliament planned to use in the future. Other events might have been even more important. In 1687, Karl II von Wittelsbach, Elector Palatine, died. His heir was Philip Wilhelm von Wittelsbach, but he belonged to the Neuburg branch of the family, which was Catholic. Louis claimed parts of the Electorate for Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orléans, the late Elector's sister and the King's sister-in-law. The final excuse for the war came in late 1688, when the the pro-French Archbishop-Elector of Köln, Maximilian Heinrich of Bavaria died and was replaced by the Pope with his relative, Joseph Clemens who was not on the French side. All those events resulted in one thing - the War of the League of Augsburg.
[1] POD: Prince Edgar survives