The Thirty Years War erupted in 1618 between the Catholics and Protestants of the Holy Roman Empire. Unrest began with the King of Bohemia (one of the German states) Ferdinand IIs strong anti-protestant tendency’s. Protestant nobles lead by Count Thurn met with Catholic representatives in the Castle of Prague. The Catholics were defenestrated ( To throw (a person or thing) out of a window) leading the event to be titled as the defenestration of Prague. All three representatives survived. Ferdinand II was deposed as King of Bohemia and the Protestant Frederick was declared King of Bohemia. Two days later Ferdinand II was elected Holy Roman Emperor. This made war almost inevitable, and indeed it was not avoided, and the Imperial-Catholic league army marched to Bohemia thus starting the Thirty years war. The course of this war was incredibly brutal and complicated, but finally ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia. This was a series of treaties making slight territorial changes, and also restating the rule that had been made at the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, that the king of a states religion was the official religion of that state. But added on to this was that during certain hours you could worship publicly in either Protestantism or Catholicism and you could worship privately whenever you wanted.
At the close of the Thirty Years War was the beginning of The English Civil War, which started in 1642. The King was Charles II, who had absolutist tendency’s. He did not call Parliament into session for the whole of the 1630s, and so revived old taxes to pay for his lavish lifestyle. Like his father King James I he believed that kings ruled by divine right and that they should be the head of power. He was disliked for his advisor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. Many believed the king was trying to bring back Catholicism with the ornate Anglican service he promoted, which some thought looked like a Catholic Mass. This was particularly unpopular with the Presbyterian Scottish and lead to a Scottish revolt. To defeat the Scottish he had to recall parliament in 1640 to get money for an army. They were furious at him for not calling parliament for over ten years, and so made him sign many agreements stating that he would regularly call parliament and other such things including many anti-Papist themes. However all of this was to no avail since most parliamentarians believed Charles was biding his time until he could reject the agreements he had signed. All this dislike cascaded into Civil war with the Cavaliers (Royalists) and Roundheads (parliamentarians) fighting against each other. The fighting eventually lead to the capture of Charles II and his execution in 1649. This shocked many people that the legitimate heir to the throne had been executed. Though during this time of turmoil a group called the Levelers arose promoting free trade, the abolition of corruption, natural rights, and the assurance that you own yourself, your property, and your life. These were the forerunners of the modern day Libertarians.