In this final episode of my reading an abridged version of Hilaire Belloc’s Characters of the Reformation we consider King Louis XIV of France.

The great thing about this series is that we begin with King Henry VIII around the run up to the the Reformation in 1517 and go through two hundred years to the death of Louis XIV in 1715. This means we have not only considered the events and key characters of the Reformation themselves, but also the aftermath of the Reformation.

The date of 1715 brings us to the beginning of the 18th century in which the Reformation issues morph into the “Enlightenment” with rationalism, the French Revolution and the continuing division in Europe.

Donor Subscribers can listen to the episode on Louis XIV here today.  

Later this week episode 16 on William of Orange – the king who staged a coup in England and took the throne from the rightful king Catholic James II can be heard at BreadBox Media.

The whole 17 part series is available at BreadBox and through all the main podcast providers for those who are not Donor Subscribers to listen free of charge. However, it will only remain “out there” until the end of this month. Then it will be taken down and the whole series will be archived here for Donor Subscribers.

If you are not a Donor Subscriber I encourage you to check out the advantages here, and if you enjoy the blog and podcasts that you will consider joining either at the Premium level of $8.95 or the Podcast level of $4.95 per month.

Go here to listen to episode 17 – King Louis XIV

What’s next? Instead of looking back at church history we’ll be looking forward. My next podcast series will be a chapter by chapter review of John Allen’s book Future Church: Ten Trends that are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church. We’ve looked at where we’ve been and how we got where we are. Now we’ll look at where the Holy Spirit may be leading the church in the twenty first century and beyond.