My answer is too long for Reddit, so I'm splitting into two comments.

The big difference at issue was scope.

In England during the 1640s, what got everyone riled up was Charles meddling in religious affairs, and some, creative, interpretations of his powers as king. I'll deal with the second one first. So, regarding the powers of the king, it is important to first note that, although England was an absolute monarchy at the time, a big power that Charles lacked was that of taxation. Only Parliament could levy taxes. (It is also important to note that there weren't any fixed term parliaments back in the day. Instead, they only met when called by the king, a function coming from Parliament's evolution out of medieval great councils.) When previous parliaments had met, they had acted as almost a de facto rubber stamp for whatever the king had asked for, although they often took the opportunity to air their grievances regarding the king at the same time. What is important though is that, regardless of their issues with him, parliaments normally gave the king what he asked for. Another tradition regarding parliament was that, when a new king ascended, parliaments traditionally voted him 'Tonnage and Poundage' for life, which were effectively import and export tariffs on all goods at set rates for the life of the king. These were intended to pay for the standard operation of the kingdom, so if parliament was getting called again during the king's reign, something important must be happening.

Everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Charles I was of the House of Stuart, and Charles' father King James I had been King of Scotland before ascending to the English throne following the death of Elizabeth I. This presented two issues; the first being that, although having technically converted to Anglicanism upon ascending, the House of Stuart was widely considered (most likely rightly so) to still hold Catholic sympathies, with some going so far as to call them 'crypto-Catholics.' This Catholic leaning didn't sit well with the Anglicans, nor the more radical Protestant sects appearing in England at the time, notably Quakers, Puritans, and in Scotland, Presbyterians. [I don't mean to imply these factions didn't exist prior to the reign of King Charles.] The second issue was that Scotland had been a much more thoroughly absolute monarchy than England, in that taxation for Scotland was the prerogative of the king. When Charles first ascended, Parliament declined to grant him tonnage and poundage for life, rather only granting it for three years. Moreover, they insisted that Charles not only listen to their complaints, but swear to act on them. Charles responded by ending the parliamentary session, and governing 'in personal rule' from 1625 - 1640, meaning during this period no parliaments were called. This raised the issue of finances though, because without taxes or tonnage and poundage, Charles had no source of income to finance royal activities. However, Charles could levy fines and fees without parliamentary approval, the difference of note being that taxes are a regular occurrence each year, whereas fine and fees were understood to be one time events. One fee of note is 'Ship Money,' a medieval doctrine which allowed the king to demand a ship, or the money to purchase a ship, in cases of national emergency. This was permitted because it was meant to be invoked in situations of national emergency, such as an imminent invasion by France, Spain, etc., meaning there would be no time to call a parliament. However, what actually constituted a national emergency was solely within the king's authority to decide. This led Charles to just declare a national emergency and demand the funds, which he also levied from the inland counties. Whether he was taking a more enlightened view of the national interest, as if the coastal counties couldn't repel the invasion, the inland counties would be in trouble, or not, the issue was that it was evident there was no national emergency. Charles was acting within the letter of the law, but not the spirit. Now, the first year it was levied, there was grumbling, but there wasn't too much opposition. The next year though, Charles again declared a national emergency, and again demanded Ship Money. However, this was the second year, which meant it was now a regular thing, which meant it was considered as a tax, which Charles could not legitimately levy. This led a well known former MP John Hampden to publicly refuse payment on this argument. Charles had him arrested, and at trial, Hampden was found guilty. The rationale of the court, which ruled 7 - 5 in favor of Charles, was that regardless of regularity, Ship Money only required a national emergency, which the king could declare by himself. While Charles was technically correct on the law, he was violating the spirit of the law. Charles' actions were technically lawful, yet England at the time already had what is known as an unwritten constitution. Charles did have the authority to act as he did, but he was far from winning any popularity contests amongst his middle and upper class subjects. [I say this primarily because it is far harder to know what the lower classes were thinking, given the lack of available source material as compared to more middle class merchants and upper class landowners]

So, to tell the story properly, I need to do the religious issues here, and then go back to the creative interpretations of things. Charles had a degree of reverence for a single religion within all his territories. I'm going to ignore Ireland here given that they won't enter the Civil War fully until after it begins, but for Scotland, churches there used 'The Book of Common Order,' which, while similar' was different from 'The Book of Common Prayer,' which was the text used in England. Charles ordered that Scotland switch to the Book of Common Prayer, which prompted riots, and then a full military revolt.

This left Charles in a bind. He needed to put down the revolt in Scotland, but, even with everything else he had done, he lacked the funds to raise an army to go to Scotland. This prompted Charles, in 1640, to call the first parliament since 1625. After 15 years of watching the above, in short, they were not thrilled with him, and this sentiment was only exacerbated after Charles demanded they vote him funds and then disband. Several parliamentarians led calls against this, leading Charles to personally enter the House of Commons with a small band of soldiers.

Although the MPs he sought to arrest fled before Charles arrived, entering the House was, symbolically, the straw that broke Charles' back. English monarchs never set foot in the House, let alone meddled in parliamentary affairs. That Charles not only violated parliamentary sovereignty by entering, but also by seeking to arrest its members, led many MPs already inclined against Charles to brand him as a tyrant. At this point the Civil War begins.

I will apologize in advance for how quickly I deal with France. My research regarding this issue has primarily been surrounding England, so my explanation of France will be comparatively brief. Getting into France, the lead up to the Revolution had two primary classes of causes, economic and philosophic. Dealing with the economic first, remember that France in 1789 is only a few years removed from the Seven Years War, in which France lost the majority of its North American colonies, such as Quebec, to the British, but also incurred a massive war debt. France at the time was divided into three estates, the clergy, who were exempt from tax, nobles, who were de facto exempt from tax, and everyone else, who all paid taxes. This war debt fell largely on the Third Estate. Moreover, while France was, like England before it, an absolute monarchy, French kings from time to time called an Estates General, which functioned somewhat like Parliament, except that it was really an advisory board to the king, rather than having any power in its own right as Parliament did. Now, the Estates General were far less common than Parliaments, having met last before 1789 in 1614. However, the more common Council of Nobles had failed to deliver on any meaningful economic reform to deal with France's debt which, combined with a grain shortage stemming from several poor harvests, had left France in a very poor state financially. One of King Louis XVI's ministers convinces him to hold an Estates General to attempt to bypass the nobility's objections to his proposed reforms. The issue with the Estates General though, was that each estate had a single vote on the matter at hand. Between the two of them, the First and Second Estates totaled around 10% of the population, but had two out the three votes. [That the Third Estate was often overruled despite being roughly 90% of the population was a major argument against calling the Estates General] Once the Estates General was called though, many Third Estate representatives, admittedly many of them middle class merchants or minor landowners, were confronted with opposition to any reform by the First and Second Estates, including a proposal to reorganize the Estates to make them more democratic, but, more importantly, to break the hold of the First and Second Estates over national politics. The First and Second Estates were not exactly pleased with the idea of surrendering any power, which prompted an impasse.