Twenty Years After Dumas comes out on the side of the monarchy in general, or at least the text often praises the "idea" of benevolent royalty. His musketeers are valiant and just in their efforts to protect young Louis XIV and the doomed Charles I from their attackers. The action begins during the regency of Queen Anne of Austria (term 1643–1651), with Cardinal Mazarin as First Minister. D'Artagnan, who seemed to have a promising career ahead of him at the end of "The Three Musketeers", has for twenty years remained a lieutenant, and seems unlikely to progress despite his ambition and the debt
Twenty Years After under Cromwell's command. At the same time, Queen Henrietta of England meets the Musketeers' old English friend, Lord de Winter - a Royalist come to ask for French assistance for King Charles I of England, her husband, in the English Civil War and sends Athos and Aramis to England as well. So once again the two pairs of Musketeers find themselves on opposite sides: but Athos and Aramis, on the occasion of departing, are recognised by Mordaunt, who has been following Lord de Winter in the hope of finding his friends. Milady's son, Mordaunt, now twenty-three, reprises his role as