 The battle was a major encounter in James's attempt to regain the thrones of England and Scotland, resulting from the Invitation to William and William's wife, Mary, from the 'immortal seven' English peers to take the throne to defend protestantism.But the conflict had broader and deeper European geopolitical roots, of the League of Augsburg and the Grand Alliance against the expansionist ambitions of Catholic Louis XIV of France, or of the House of Bourbon against the House of Habsburg.If the battle is seen as part of the War of the Grand Alliance, Pope Alexander VIII was an ally of William and an enemy to James; the Papal States were part of the Grand Alliance with a shared hostility to the Catholic Louis XIV of France, who at the time was attempting to establish dominance in Europe and to whom James was an ally.