Charles, Duke of Aumale
Charles I de Lorraine | |
---|---|
Bruxelles, Spanish Netherlands | |
Spouse | Marie de Lorraine |
Issue Detail | Anne de Lorraine Marie de Lorraine |
House | House of Lorraine |
Father | Claude, Duke of Aumale |
Mother | Louise de Brézé |
Charles de Lorraine,
In 1584 Alençon died, leaving the Protestant
By this time Aumale had been elected governor of Picardie by the local ligueur government, and he clashed with Navarre (now Henri IV) at the
Early life and family
Family
Charles de Lorraine was born in 1555 the eldest surviving son of Claude de Lorraine, duc d'Aumale and Louise de Brézé the wealthy heiress. He had four sisters who made it to adulthood among them Diane de Lorraine and Catherine de Lorraine, who would marry her distant cousin the duke of Mercœur, and one brother the chevalier d'Aumale.[2]
Education
Aumale received an elite education, alongside many other leading nobles he attended the College de Navarre in Paris, an institution that rivalled the Sorbonne in prestige at the time.[3] In 1572 he attended the Jesuit university at Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine. He was shaped by the two years he spent in the institution, becoming far more devoutly Catholic than his cousins and resultingly developing a more uncompromising religious worldview as far as compromise with Protestantism was concerned.[4]
Inheritance
Aumale inherited his father's office of Grand Veneur, one of the Great Offices of State.[5] Under his father hunts had been regular, and the office significant. The post however decreased in importance during the reign of Henri III, who rarely went on hunts. The budget was cut from 70,000 livres to 24,500 livres, forcing Aumale to sell lands to cover the costs of the honour.[6] In 1583, Henri chided Aumale for granting other nobleman too much access to the royal forests for hunting, asking him to be more moderate in the amount of permission he granted to others, so that the forests would still be well stocked for the king.[7]
Marriage and children
In late 1576, at Joinville, Aumale married his first cousin, Marie de Lorraine, Mademoiselle d'Elbeuf, daughter of the marquis of Elbeuf and Louise de Rieux.[8] Marrying a first cousin required an expensive Papal dispensation. Another of Aumale's cousins the duke of Guise paid the 100,000 livres dowry required for the match. It was hoped this would ease Aumale's financial troubles, however it took a while for Guise to produce the money. At the same time as his wedding, his sister Diane de Lorraine married the prince François de Luxembourg, comte de Roucy.[9] In January 1582, Mademoiselle d'Elbeuf would catch the king's eye, and he quickly became infatuated.[10] During the religious war of the 1590s, Elbeuf would find herself increasingly managing the families financial situation.[11]
Together they had two children. His elder daughter, would marry his kinsmen Henri I, Duke of Nemours, transmitting what was left of the Aumale inheritance to the Nemours, while the younger daughter would marry the Spanish general Ambrogio Spinola.[12]
Reign of Henri III
At the coronation of
First ligue
The fifth war of religion was brought to a close by the generous
The king tasked Alençon with leading the royal army, and he conducted a campaign that captured La Charité-sur-Loire and Issoire, before the lack of pay caused his army to disintegrate. Accompanying him in the conduct of this campaign was the duke of Guise, the governor of Berry Claude de La Châtre and Aumale. Meanwhile Aumale's cousin campaigned successfully against Condé near La Rochelle. With the main royal army dissolved for want of funds, Henri brought the war to a close with the harsher Treaty of Bergerac, which sated many of the ligueur demands, and abolished the ligue.[15] Aumale, who was staying at the Château d'Anet, provided an early copy of the treaty to the leading Norman ligueur Maineville, who took responsibility for rallying the uncompromising ligueurs against the new peace, though most were satisfied with its terms and the organisation faded away.[16]
In April 1578,
Increasingly unsatisfied with the dilution of honour that had befallen the Ordre du Saint-Michel, Henri decided to found a new order of chivalry, in the hopes of more tightly controlling its recipients. To this end he established the Ordre du Saint-Esprit in 1578. All the Lorraine princes received the honour of elevation as chevaliers, including Aumale. Aumale would be among the first intake to receive the honour alongside the king, Nevers and Mercœur , in 1578 itself. Elbeuf would have to wait until 1581 and Mayenne to 1582.[18][19]
Seventh war of religion
In November 1579, Condé, frustrated at his failure to be returned to the governorship of Picardie, seized the Picard town of
Henri planned a grand marriage in 1581 between one of his favourites Joyeuse and his queen's half sister Marguerite de Lorraine-Vaudémont, daughter of Mercœur a cousin of the Guise. The Lorraine's turned out in force to act as witness to the marriage, and Aumale was among those who gathered for the signing of the contract on 18 September 1581.[21] The king hoped this marriage would bind the Lorraine family to one of his chief favourites.[22] Further elevations for the king's favourites were arranged with the elevation of Épernon to the honour of being a Duke Peer of the kingdom with seniority over the Lorraine's and all other non royal princes. Aumale and Guise bore witness to the signing of the letters patent in Parlement on 21 November.[23]
Financial reform
During October 1582, the king, keen to enact financial reform for the kingdom, summoned an Assembly of Notables to meet at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Each notable of the kingdom was sent a personal invitation, with 68 showing up to the meeting. Several princes attended, among them Aumale and Guise. Protestant grandees did not show, despite Navarre having received an invite. Henri hoped for discussions of tax reform and justice administration to be discussed, however the proceedings became derailed when Cardinal Bourbon fell to his knees and begged the king to outlaw Protestantism. While the talks would ultimately not produce much directly, they influenced the king's policy in 1584 and 1585.[24] Though Aumale was consulted at such occasions, he increasingly chafed over the fact that he lacked a governate, with royal favour in the bestowal of offices devoted to Henri's circle of provincial favourites.[25] Further alienation came from a spat that developed at Saint-Germain between Aumale's brother and Épernon, which pulled in Aumale and the wider Lorraine clan to the defence of their relative.[26]
Second ligue
Aumale was not present for the family council at
Aumale took responsibility for recruiting among his allied networks in Picardie. In total Aumale could count on around a quarter of the nobility of Picardie to offer support to the ligue.
'Peace'
Though formally reconciled with the king, Aumale and his local ligueur allies continued to build their power in Picardie in 1586-7, seizing more towns for the ligue, united by their hatred of the royal favourite Épernon. Among the towns that fell to them were Doullens, Corbie and Le Crotoy.[39] Henri, concerned that Picardie represented the most obvious entry for Spain into the kingdom, dispatched Nevers the governor of the region to act as a countervailing force to Aumale's influence.[40] Alongside the strategic value for inviting an ally into the kingdom, the ligueur control of Picardie also afforded Spain a potential launch pad for their upcoming Armada against England.[41] In negotiations with Guise and Cardinal Bourbon from late May to early June, Henri asked that they yield the towns of Le Crotoy and Doullens which Aumale had seized to the governor of Picardie, Nevers, but they refused to hand them over.[42] In June, a plot was hatched by the ligue to deliver Boulogne to Aumale, the prévôt of the town, Vétus was recruited so that on one of his regular visits to the settlement, he would open the gates and deliver it to Aumale. A man named Poulain was however able to catch wind of the plan, and he warned Henri. Henri in turn alerted the governor Bernet who promptly had Vétus arrested. He then prepared to greet Aumale with cannon shot as he approached the city, Aumale only narrowly avoiding death. Vétus for his part was released through the intervention of Guise.[43]
As Aumale continued to seize towns in the winter of 1587, Mendoza the Spanish ambassador looked on with contentment.
Later that month Henri met with Épernon, hoping to persuade him that it was necessary to divest him of some of his many offices. Among those offices Henri asked him to abandon was that of Boulogne, which Henri desired to give to a royalist Catholic whose religious credentials could not be doubted like Épernons. Épernon retorted that such concessions were futile, but he would cede his post as governor of Provence and Metz, on the condition that the latter was granted to the count of Brienne. He refused any compromise over his possession of Boulogne.[50] Around this time Aumale was responsible for two assassination attempts against the royal favourite.[51]
Day of the barricades
During May, Henri attempted a showdown in Paris with the duke of Guise, increasingly unable to tolerate the demands of the ligue upon him. Radical Catholic Parisians responded by rallying to Guise and rioting against the king. To this end the Parisians began constructing barricades throughout the town, the first time this course had been taken. Guise was caught by surprise to see these barricades, and dispatched Aumale and
As a result of the concessions made in the wake of his exile from Paris, an Estates General was called. The ligue hoped to dominate it and force the king into further concessions. Aumale arrived in Amiens to oversee the discussions of the nobility that had assembled in the region, before their departure to Blois.[54] As a result of the influence he exerted, he succeeded in getting the cahiers of the assembled delegates to suggest to the king that he be made governor of Picardie instead of Nevers, that Bernet be relieved from his command in Boulogne and the key town reunited with the rest of the governate.[46] He was aided in his influencing of the delegates by the lieutenant-general of the baillage, who omitted invitations to any supporters of Henri, leading to a situation where only three to four had turned up.[55]
Despite the unity of the broader Guise family in support of the ligue project, the family was not without internal divisions. Aumale and Elbeuf jealously resented the popularity of their cousin the duke of Guise. Suspicions of family disunity was one of the aided the king in resolving on the course he settled on in December, to assassinate the duke of Guise, a plan that was executed on 23 December.[56] After the death of the duke, leadership of the ligue was no longer clear. In the estimation of the Spanish ambassador, either Guise's brother Mayenne, or the governor of Berry, La Châtre were best suited to assuming leadership. The ambassador assessed Aumale poorly, feeling he was too inexperienced to take on such an important task.[57]
Assassination of the duke of Guise
The Seize which had taken over Paris during the Day of the Barricades, responded to the assassination of the duke of Guise in December 1588 by declaring Henri III deposed. Exercising their newfound authority the Seize appointed Aumale as the ligueur governor of Paris shortly thereafter on 26 December.[58][59] In this role he oversaw the disarmament of members of the Parisian population who could not be relied upon to support the ligue.[60] To achieve this house searches of the 'politically unreliable', (among them the famous diarist Pierre de L'Estoile) were undertaken.[61] He further received the appointment as ligueur governor of Picardie in February 1589, a province in which he had considerable influence.[62] He was elected to this office by the Picard conseil des état.[63] As part of this role, the ligue afforded him a pension of 10,000 écus.[64]
Aumale and his brother had been collaborating with the Seize in the underground of Paris since 1586, and the chevalier d'Aumale considered himself the seventeenth member of the organisation. Aumale and the Seize took it upon themselves to provide instructions and exhortations to all the major municipal governments of the kingdom. Those which were already ligueur were to be mobilised, while those which had not yet embraced the ligue cause were to join it. In the coming months around half of the largest 50 towns would defect from the crown.
The Seize took it upon itself to purge the Paris Parlement of all suspected royalists in early 1589. Aumale oversaw the remaining judges in their taking of an oath to uphold the ligue on 26 January.
A ligueur coup overthrew the government of
Lèse majesté
The war against the ligue was increasingly total for Henri. To this end, in late February he declared Mayenne, Aumale and the chevalier d'Aumale to be guilty of the crime of lèse majesté for their armed rebellion against him.[73] They were thus stripped of their offices and honours.[74] He did not entirely exclude the possibility of reconciliation, promising he would show clemency if they abandoned their rebellion and returned to obedience.[75] With Henri and Navarre reconciled, now in an alliance against the ligue they began a march on Paris.[76]
Senlis
The town of Senlis had expelled its ligueur garrison on 26 April in favour of the king.[77] Aumale in collaboration with Maineville, an influential Norman ligueur made an attempt to recapture the town of Senlis, with 6000 foot and 1800 horse in May. Their effort was a failure, as a royal army under Longueville forced him to break off his siege in 17 May and yield the town to them.[78] 1500 ligueur soldiers were killed in the disaster among them Maineville, with Aumale forced to seek refuge in Saint-Denis.[79] The destruction of the ligueur force by an inferiorly sized royal army was cause for celebration in the royalist camp, and a Te Deum was performed at Tours.[80]
Reign of Henri IV
Arques
The attempt on Paris ruined by the
While Épernon was travelling at the head of a body of horse near Corbie, Aumale nearly succeeded in ambushing him, but was unable to capture or kill his hated enemy.
Beginning of the end
By 1594 the situation facing the ligue in Picardie was increasingly bleak,
Holdout
Now negotiating with Henri, Mayenne proposed his return to the royal fold in return for the following conditions, his maintenance as governor of Bourgogne, the young
While Henri was absent from Paris, the Paris Parlement took the opportunity to declare him guilty of lèse majesté and sentenced him to death for his treason. Henri was displeased, as he still desired to bring Aumale back into the French fold.[5] Aumale for his part, now regretted his earlier defiance, and was desperate to be returned to the king's favour, he and his wife besieged the king with letters but to no avail. He further kept in touch with Mercœur who assured him that his coming to terms with Henri was only temporary, and that he still had the fire of rebellion in him, though he died before any such plans could come to fruition.[12]
Exile
In 1597 Aumale led a Spanish force at Amiens against Henri and expanded his Spanish service to taking command against the Dutch in 1600 during the siege of
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