Conflicts in 17th-century Europe often drew in foreign participants because of the rivalry between the Bourbon kings of France and their Habsburg rivals in Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Habsburg territories in the Spanish Netherlands, the Franche-Comté and the Pyrenees blocked the expansion of France and made it vulnerable to invasion. As a result, the Catholic Bourbons supported their Habsburg opponents, irrespective of religion, including the Ottomans, the Dutch and the Danishs-Norwegians.
