Thomas de Foix

The Marshal Thomas de Foix-Lescun. Drawing by Jean Clouet from the 16th century.

Thomas de Foix († March 3, 1525 in Pavia ) was a Bishop of Tarbes , French military and since 1518 Marshal of France .

Thomas was the second-born son of Jean de Foix , Vice Count of Lautrec and Villemur, and his wife Jeanne d'Aydie. His brothers were Marshal Odet de Foix and General André de Foix , while his sister Françoise was the mistress of King Francis I of France .

Thomas was ordained bishop around 1505 at a young age, but since 1509 he no longer held this church office. Instead, he installed the Italian Leonardo di Bartolomeo Bartolini as procurator in his diocese, who from then on ran the business there. Around 1514 Thomas de Foix gave up his ecclesiastical career entirely and entered the military service of the King of France. After he had been knighted by Pierre du Terrail , the "knight without fear and blame", de Foix inherited the rule of Lescun from his mother around 1515. In 1518 he was appointed Marshal of France by King Francis I ; by his contemporaries he was called Maréchal de Lescun or Maréchal de Foix . In 1520 he was accepted into the Order of Michael .

Thomas de Foix took part in the wake of his older brother in France's Italian wars against the House of Habsburg . After 1515 he temporarily took over the governorship of Milan on behalf of his brother, but was driven out by the Milanese because of his harsh rule. From 1516 he and Giovanni dalle Bande Nere helped Pope Leo X and his nephew Lorenzo di Piero de 'Medici with weapons in their fight for the Duchy of Urbino . On April 27, 1522 de Foix commanded the cavalry on the left wing of the Franco-Venetian army at the Battle of Bicocca, which he led against the cavalry of the imperial under Francesco II Sforza . However, the French defeat in this battle resulted in the ultimate loss of Milan for France. In February 1525 Thomas de Foix was one of the three marshals in the army of King Francis I who besieged the city of Pavia, where on February 24th the decisive battle against the Imperial Spanish army took place. When the imperial forces broke through into the center of the French army there, de Foix was distinguished by his bold defense of the king. The Maréchal de La Palice as well as the Amiral de Bonnivet fell. Thomas de Foix, seriously wounded by two hits from an arquebus , as well as the Maréchal de Montmorency and the king himself, were captured in which de Foix succumbed to his wounds after a few days.

literature

• Götz-Rüdiger Tewes, Michael Rohlmann (ed.): The Medici Pope Leo X and France. Politics, culture and family affairs in the European Renaissance (= late Middle Ages and Reformation. Texts and studies. NR 19). Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2002, ISBN 3-16-147769-3 .
• Charles Oman : A History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century. Methuen & Co., London 1937.