Charles de Lorraine 1
General Notes: The eldest son of Henri de Guise. He was arrested at Blois on the day of his father's assassination, and was held prisoner at Tours until he escaped in 1591. His liberation weakened more than it strengthened the League, for while the Parlement of Paris and the forty members of the League who formed the Council of Union at Paris wished to place Mayenne, the brother of Henri de Guise, on the throne, the faction of the Sixteen and the populace, on the contrary, claimed as king this young Duke of Guise, thus giving rise to dissensions in the League. The chances of the young duke were increased by the possibility of his marriage to the daughter of the King of Spain, Mayenne being already married. But at the States-General of 1593, convoked by Mayenne after the death of the Cardinal de Bourbon, Mayenne diverted the discussion, postponed a decision, and had himself simply confirmed in his position as lieutenant-general of the realm. The Duke of Guise soon ceased to belong to the League. In 1594 he declared himself a subject of Henry IV, and slew with his own hand an old member of the League, the Maréchal de Saint-Pol, who reproached him with betraying the memory of his father. Henry IV completed the conquest of the young duke by the confidence which he placed in him. Despite the longstanding pretensions of the Guises to Provence, the king sent him thither to capture Marseilles from the Duc d'Epernon, who occupied the city in the name of the League. Thus, after 1595, the Duke of Guise, who two years before was on the point of being made king by the League, was in arms against it. Thus ended the political and religious policy of the Guises. Charles de Lorraine married (1611) Henriette-Catherine de Joyeuse, by whom he had ten children. He served under Louis XIII against the Protestants, and, having taken the side of the queen-mother, Marie de' Medici, against Richelieu, retired to Italy in 1631, where he died in obscurity. Noted events in his life were: • He was employed. Fourth Duke of Guise Charles married Henriette-Catherine de Joyeuse in 1611. |