I guess we’re going to have to disagree on the military history front.
The various wars you describe are all, IMO, examples of wars that at root were desperate attempts by the nobility to maintain their crumbling position in society.
The power that wealth gives a person or group in society could be mathematically expressed as a percentage of the total wealth.
During the Middle Ages, the nobility, with the King generally considered primarily the first in rank of the nobles, controlled the vast majority of every country’s wealth. The upper ranks of the clergy were also very wealthy, but they were in reality mainly a branch of the nobility, being usually younger sons of aristocrats.
With the early modern period, the King, generally with the enthusiastic support of the commoners, isolated himself from and put himself far above the nobles. High nobles fought over the privilege of carrying away the Sun-King’s chamber pot, whereas their ancestors would have cut the King’s throat for suggesting such a thing.
The nobility’s share of wealth declined precipitously throughout the early modern period, while the King’s went up, and that of the commoners went up even faster. This decline of the nobles was on the Continent exacerbated by the practice of considering all sons of nobles to be noble. In England, only the heir was noble, his brothers and sisters were commoners.
That is why the nobility in France in the second half of the 18th century competed so desperately for positions at court. It was generally the only way they could maintain their illusion of wealth and power. They expanded the need for patents of nobility even further for positions, because in many cases their nobility was all they had, and they were trying to increase its value.
BTW, the middle ages and early modern eras, even on the Continent, had a good deal more social mobility than commonly thought. What you describe was the theory. The reality was a lot more flexible. A commoner who became wealthy could take advantage of a thriving trade in phony patents of nobility. Families often went up (and down) a lot faster than theory would allow.
I should point out that by "wealth" I mean income above subsistence. Disposable income of the nobility would have been much greater than that of commoners, despite their being so many more of the common herd.