Guillaume de Montmorency, seigneur de Thoré

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Guillaume de Montmorency , seigneur de Thoré (* 1546 or 1547; † 1594 ) was a French officer during the Huguenot Wars and a knight of the Order of Michael . As Seigneur of Thoré-la-Rochette , he was also briefly called Thoré . Coming from the House of Montmorency , he initially supported the Catholic side in the French Wars of Religion, but later fought for the Protestants . As a member of the so-called Malcontents (German: dissatisfied) he was one of the main characters in the Fifth Huguenot War .

family

Guillaume de Montmorency was born in 1546 or 1547 as the youngest of five sons of Connétables Anne de Montmorency and his wife Madeleine de Savoie.

For dynastic reasons, his parents married him in 1561 to Léonore, daughter of Jeans d'Humières. This connection was to preserve the considerable inheritance in Picardy for the house of Montmorency, because Léonore's aunt Charlotte had married Anne's younger brother Francois de Montmorency, seigneur de La Rochepot in 1525 and brought considerable property into the marriage. Since she had remained childless, however, there was a risk of losing the property there, which they sought to counter with the marriage of Guillaume and Léonore. But no children arose from this connection either; Léonore d'Humières died in 1563.

Guillaume remarried in 1581. His second wife was a distant relative: Anne de Lalaing, daughter of Antoine de Lalaing, the Count of Hoogstraten . She brought the Artois inheritance of her uncle, Floris de Montmorency, baron de Montigny with her into the marriage. The only child from this connection was Madeleine, who married Henri de Luxembourg, duc de Piney -Luxembourg, in 1597 .

Life

Like his brothers before him, Guillaume embarked on a military career. In the service of the French royal family, he took together with his three brothers , Charles , François and Henri I. in November 1567 at the Battle of Saint-Denis (1567) part. In 1572, Henri renounced the post of Colonel général of the light cavalry (French: colonel-général de la cavalerie légère) in Guillaume's favor , which he held until 1574.

At the beginning of 1574 a group was formed that did not agree with the policy of the French royal family and united under its roof dissatisfied members of the largest and most important French noble houses, including all the Montmorency brothers, as well as moderate Catholics and Huguenots . They called themselves Les Malcontents and planned as the successor to the seriously ill Charles IX. not the legitimate heir to the throne Heinrich III. , but to establish his younger brother François-Hercule . This conspiracy marked the beginning of the Fifth Huguenot War. After the plot was uncovered in the spring of the same year and several Malcontents were either executed or imprisoned in the Bastille , Guillaume fled abroad, but returned to France as the leader of a contingent of German mercenaries. His soldiers were supposed to support Protestant troops, but were defeated on October 10, 1575 by Catholic troops led by Henri I de Lorraine in the Battle of Dormans . Before that, when Katharina von Medici heard of the approach of Guillaume and his mercenaries, he was said to have received the news that the regent would send him the heads of his brothers François and Charles if he dared to go to French soil with the German soldiers to enter. Guillaume is said to have replied: “Should the Queen do what she has announced, there will be nothing in France where I will not leave traces of my vengeance.” (“Si la pure fait ce qu'elle dit, il n'a rien en France où je ne laisse des marques de ma vengeance. ")

In contrast to his brother Henri I, Guillaume was reconciled with the French king. At François d'Alençon's request, he tried in 1583 to mediate between the two warring parties and in May 1589 defended the city of Senlis in the name of Henry III. against troops of the Catholic League .

literature

  • Hilarion de Coste: Magdelaine de Savoie, duchesse de Montmorency . In: Les Eloges et vies des reynes, princesses, dames et damoiselles illustres en piété, courage et doctrine, qui ont fleury de nostre temps, et du temps de nos peres . Volume 2, 2nd edition. Sébastien et Gabriel Cramoisy, Paris 1647, p. 209 ( online ).
  • Joan Davies: The politics of the marriage bed. Matrimony and the Montmorency family 1527-1612 . In: French History . Vol. 6, No. 1, 1992, ISSN  0269-1191 , pp. 63-95, doi : 10.1093 / fh / 6.1.63 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b M. A. Gruyer: Les monumens de la Renaissance francaise dans la chapelle du château de Chantilly. In: Revue des deux mondes. Recueil de la politique, de l'administration et des moeurs . Volume 64, July 1884, ISSN  0035-1962 , p. 120.
  2. ↑ Etienne Pasquier, Dorothy Thickett: Lettres historiques pour les années 1556-1594. Droz, 1966, p. 172.
  3. ↑ genealogies.free.fr ( Memento of March 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), as of January 11, 2009.
  4. ^ Ludovic Lalanne: Dictionnaire historique de la France . Volume 1, 2nd edition. Burt Franklin, New York, ISBN 0833719831 , p. 557 ( digitized version ).
  5. ↑ Quoted from Louis Pierre Anquetil: Histoire de France, depuis les Gaulois jusqu'à la mort de Louis XVI . Volume 8. Garnery, Fautin, Paris 1813, p. 43 ( digitized version ).
  6. ^ Sophie Crawford Lomas (arr.): Calendar of State Papers of Elizabeth, Foreign Series. Volume 18: July 18, 1583-July 1584 . Longman & Co., London 1914, pp. 422-432 ( online ).
personal data
SURNAME Montmorency, seigneur de Thoré, Guillaume de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Montmorency-Thoré, Guillaume de; Thoré
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French military, member of the Malcontents
DATE OF BIRTH 1546 or 1547
DATE OF DEATH 1594