Artus de Cossé | |
---|---|
Seigneur de Gonnor | |
Other titles | Marshal of France Comte de Secondigny |
Born | January 1512 |
Died | February 1582 70) Château de Gonnord , Kingdom of France | (aged
Family | Maison de Cossé-Brissac |
Father | René de Cosse-Brissac |
Mother | Charlotte Gouffier de Boisy |
Artus de Cossé, seigneur de Gonnor and Comte de Secondigny (1512–1582), was a Marshal of France, an office he was elevated to in 1567. He served to administer the armies finances during the first of the French Wars of Religion and would lead the royal army in its pursuit of the Prince of Condé during the second civil war. His failure to catch the army led to his dismissal from overall royal command. During the third civil war he would again lead troops, beating a small Protestant force, before being defeated in the final days of the war at Arney-le-Duc. His long history of Politique leanings would push him into the orbit of the Malcontents for which he would be arrested in 1574. In 1576 he would be released and restored to favour before he died in 1582.
The Cossé family was ennobled in the fourteenth century. [1] Artus de Cossé was the brother of the Marshal Brissac who had been elevated to the title during the reign of Henri II of France, he would predecease Cossé, dying in 1563. [2] The two boys had been raised in the royal household at Blois, as their father, René de Cossé and mother Charlotte Gouffier de Boisy were governors for the royal children of François I. As such the two were enfants d'honneur. [3]
Cossé fell into the orbit of Anne de Montmorency as a client after his former childhood playmate had become king. When Metz was taken by the French in 1552, the king wanted to appoint Marshal Vielleville as its governor, but Montmorency strongly objected, and proposed Cossé. The king conceded to this choice. [4] Frustrated by his defeat at Metz the emperor struck back the following year, in April 1553 his army razed Thérouanne. In the wake of this embarrassment, the duke of Guise was able to leverage the disfavour Montmorency fell into to have Cossé replaced with Vielleville as governor of Metz. [5]
In 1562, Cossé was responsible for the financial administration of the army. In late 1562 he received the role of lieutenant general of the city of Paris, succeeding his brother who had previously been given the role in May 1562. [6] In this role he coordinated defence of the city and connected the royal administration with the Parlement. [7] Catherine de'Medici wrote to him later in the year, complaining that the veteran infantry in Calais had not been paid for months. His brother Brissac likewise complained for funds concerning his troops in Rouen. [8] After the first civil war had concluded, in 1564, Cossé was appointed to the finance office of surintendant-général des finances the chief post for the financial administration of the kingdom. [9] In this capacity he would attempt to introduce a tax on weddings and baptisms, however this move would be blocked by the Parlement. [10]
As the peace deteriorated, rumours reached court in September that Protestant cavalry was assembling near Montargis, Catherine instructed Cossé to investigate the matter and report back to her. [11] Shortly thereafter the Protestant nobility would execute the Surprise of Meaux, utilising the assembled cavalry in an attempt to seize the king, however this would be a failure. Following this, the rebel attempt to besiege Paris to where the king had fled, however this would be dealt a blow in the battle of Saint-Denis. The remnants of Condé's army retreating over the French border to regroup. Cossé was tasked with leading the army to intercept him and his failure to successfully do so, combined with his suspected Protestant leanings led to his dismissal from army command by Catherine in favour of Marshal Tavannes. [12]
With peace established in early 1568 Cossé would be responsible for monitoring the frontier, which many Huguenot nobles were attempting to cross in the wake of Alva's operations in the Spanish Netherlands. Refugee nobles found much support among the Protestant nobility in Picardy, and attempted to re-enter the Netherlands under arms in July under the captains Mouvans and Cocqueville. Cossé was able to intercept and destroy this attempted border crossing. [13] Cossé had Cocqueville summarily executed, while Catherine instructed him to hand the Flemish prisoners over to Alva, while the French prisoners would be sent to the galleys. [14] Alongside these military actions, Cossé was instructed to locate Condé so as to instruct him to ensure the terms of peace would be obeyed in Orléans and Blois. [15]
As a man of politique leanings, when informed of the plan to arrest the Huguenot leadership and revoke the Peace of Longjumeau that had ended the second civil war, he was hesitant to enforce the orders. [16] Once formal civil war had resumed however, he would serve the crown loyally, first assisting with 15 companies of men-at-arms and 2000 footmen in the effort to guard the frontier in Picardy from penetration by Prince of Orange. This would be a failure, and he would enter France in December 1568. [17] Nevertheless in this capacity he would be responsible for handing over several prisoners to the Duke of Alba for punishment. [18] He would then move south, fighting alongside the Duke of Montpensier, successfully crushing the viscounts of Quercy and Languedoc when they sought to reach junction with the army under the Prince of Condé in Périgord. [19] In October 1569, Cossé's forces were present at the decisive Battle of Moncontour and played a critical role in the crowns victory. [20] After the destruction of the Protestant army Cossė was among those advocating for the king to seize the moment to gain a favourable peace, the crown was however uninterested, and set about sieging St. Jean-d'Angély in what would prove a costly battle of attrition. [21] As the siege dragged on with little progress, the king reconsidered the proposal, and Cossé was sent with de Losses to meet with Jeanne d'Albret in La Rochelle to talk terms, however she was uninterested. [22] In early 1570, Cossé was tasked with seizing the strategic city of La Charité, to deny the Huguenots their primary means of communication across the Loire river. [23] As Coligny marched on Paris in the final months of the war, Cossé's army would be defeated during their attempt to intercept him at the Battle of Arnay-le-Duc in June. [24]
In 1570 he was established as the governor of Touraine, replacing the prince dauphin. [25]
With peace declared in 1570, France entered a period of uneasy co-existence between Protestantism and Catholicism. Coligny, who had become the military leader of the Protestant rebels was hesitant to return to court, demanding many assurances for his safety before he would assent, when at last he was prepared to return, Cossé escorted him from his stronghold in La Rochelle to the capital. [26] As part of the peace a marriage was arranged between Navarre and Margaret of Valois for which the leading nobility assembled in Paris. [27] After the wedding, an assassin wounded Coligny, in the heated atmosphere of recriminations after the attempt, it was decided to liquidate the Protestant leadership in a lightning strike. [28] The attempted assassinations would however slip out of the control of their perpetrators into a general massacre, leaving the politique Cossé in great fear for his life as Catholics considered soft on Protestantism were also targeted. [29]
Having survived the massacre, in 1574 he would find himself involved in the conspiracy of the Malcontents against the crown. Cossé had rallied to Alençon's, hurrying to his apartments as the young prince increasingly moved into opposition. [30] With the conspiracy exposed, he, alongside François de Montmorency would be imprisoned in the Bastille. [31] With peace declared between the Malcontents and the crown in 1576, Cossé would have his freedom and offices restored as a term of the peace at the insistence of Alençon. [32] [33]
During the negotiations between Alençon and the Dutch States General in 1579, Cossé remained close to the prince and was a member of his council during the negotiations for Alençon becoming monarch of the Netherlands. [34] In 1580 Alençon dispatched Cossé to Henri III to ensure his support for sending an army with Alençon as he moved into his new kingdom. Henri informed Cossé he had no opposition to the prospect but that his priority at the moment was establishing peace in the Midi. [35]
The French Wars of Religion were a series of civil wars between French Catholics and Protestants from 1562 to 1598. Between two and four million people died from violence, famine or disease directly caused by the conflict, and it severely damaged the power of the French monarchy. One of its most notorious episodes was the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572. The fighting ended with a compromise in 1598, when Henry of Navarre, who had converted to Catholicism in 1593, was proclaimed King Henry IV of France and issued the Edict of Nantes, which granted substantial rights and freedoms to the Huguenots. However, Catholics continued to disapprove of Protestants and of Henry, and his assassination in 1610 triggered a fresh round of Huguenot rebellions in the 1620s.
Louis de Bourbon, 1st Prince of Condé was a prominent Huguenot leader and general, the founder of the Condé branch of the House of Bourbon. Coming from a position of relative political unimportance during the reign of Henri II, Condé's support for the Huguenots, along with his leading role in the conspiracy of Amboise and its aftermath, pushed him to the centre of French politics. Arrested during the reign of Francis II then released upon the latter's premature death, he would lead the Huguenot forces in the first three civil wars of the French Wars of Religion before being executed after his defeat at the Battle of Jarnac in 1569.
François de Montmorency, 2nd Duke of Montmorency was a French noble, governor, diplomat and soldier during the latter Italian Wars and the early French Wars of Religion. The son of Anne de Montmorency, favourite of the king and Madeleine of Savoy, Montmorency began his political career during the coronation of Henri II in 1547. With the resumption of the Italian Wars in 1551 he fought at the capture of Chieri, the famous defence of Metz and the defence of Thérouanne. In the latter engagement he was captured by Imperial forces, and put up for ransom. He would spend the next three years in captivity before returning to France in 1556. Returning to the conflict immediately he participated in the disastrous Saint-Quentin campaign in which the French army was destroyed and his father captured. After serving as a lieutenant in Picardie he found himself gaining advantage on the death of Henri II, the new Guise regime compensating the Montmorency family for their seizure of the grand maître title with the provision of a Marshal baton to Montmorency.
Armand de Gontaut, Baron of Biron was a soldier, diplomat and Marshal of France. Beginning his service during the Italian Wars, Biron served in Italy under Marshal Brissac and Guise in 1557 before rising to command his own cavalry regiment. Returning to France with the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis he took up his duties in Guyenne, where he observed the deteriorating religious situation that was soon to devolve into the French Wars of Religion. He fought at the Battle of Dreux in the first civil war. In the peace that followed he attempted to enforce the terms on the rebellious governorship of Provence.
Jacques de Savoie, duc de Nemours was a French military commander, governor and Prince Étranger. Having inherited his titles at a young age, Nemours fought for king Henri II during the latter Italian Wars, seeing action at the siege of Metz and the stunning victories of Renty and Calais in 1554 and 1558. Already a commander of French infantry, he received promotion to commander of the light cavalry after the capture of Calais in 1558. A year prior he had accompanied François, Duke of Guise on his entry into Italy, as much for the purpose of campaigning as to escape the king's cousin Antoine of Navarre who was threatening to kill him for his extra-marital pursuit of Navarre's cousin.
Jacques d'Albon, Seigneur de Saint-André was a French governor, Marshal, and favourite of Henri II. He began his career as a confident of the dauphin during the reign of François I, reared with the prince under the governorship of his father at court. In 1547 at the advent of Henri's reign he was appointed as his father's deputy, serving as lieutenant general for the Lyonnais. Concurrently he entered the king's conseil privé and was made a Marshal and Grand Chamberlain.
Claude II de Lorraine, duc d'Aumale was a Prince étranger, military commander and French governor, during the latter Italian Wars and the early French Wars of Religion. The son of the first Duke of Guise he started his career in a pre-eminent position in French politics as a son of one of the leading families in the court of Henri II of France. Upon the death of his father in 1550, Aumale inherited the governorship of Burgundy from his father, and the duchy of Aumale from his brother who assumed the titles of Guise. Aumale was made colonel-general of the light horse by the new king and fought in Italy, Alsace and Picardie between 1551 and 1559. While leading the light cavalry during the defence of Metz he was captured, and held for the next two years, until his mother in law Diane de Poitiers paid his ransom. He achieved success at the siege of Volpiano and played an important role in the capture of Calais for which he was rewarded with the governorship of French Piedmont.
René de Birague was an Italian then French noble, lieutenant-general, chancellor and cardinal during the latter Italian Wars and the French Wars of Religion. Born to a prominent Milanese family in 1506, his family sided with the French, and as such when Milan was occupied by Emperor Charles V they were forced to flee to French controlled Piedmont. Declared a criminal in 1536, his Milanese estates would be seized. Birague entered French service in the 1540s, being elevated to premier président of the Parlement of Turin, which in combination with his service under the French governor Marshal Brissac from 1550, afforded him immense administrative power in the French occupied territories. In 1562 with the French withdrawal from the Piedmont, he departed his post in the Parlement, however the following year would see him elevated in one of the remaining French held towns, as leader of the Supreme Council of Pignerol.
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Gaspard de Saulx, sieur de Tavannes was a French Roman Catholic military leader during the Italian Wars and the French Wars of Religion. He served under four kings during his career, participating in the Siege of Calais (1558) and leading the royal army to victory in the third civil war at the Jarnac and Moncontour. A strong Catholic, he founded the confraternity of the holy ghost in 1567 which would be a template for other militant Catholic organisations across France. He died in 1573, shortly after the opening assassinations of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, which he had helped plan.
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Louis de Bourbon, Duc de Montpensier was the second Duke of Montpensier, a French Prince of the Blood, military commander and governor. He began his military career during the Italian Wars, and in 1557 was captured after the disastrous battle of Saint-Quentin. His liberty restored he found himself courted by the new regime as it sought to steady itself and isolate its opponents in the wake of the Conspiracy of Amboise. At this time Montpensier supported liberalising religious reform, as typified by the Edict of Amboise he was present for the creation of.
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Albert de Gondi, duc de Retz seigneur du Perron, comte, then marquis de Belle-Isle (1573), duc de Retz, was a marshal of France and a member of the Gondi family. Beginning his career during the Italian Wars he fought at the Battle of Renty in 1554, and in many of the campaigns into Italy in the following years, before returning to France for the disastrous battle of Saint-Quentin and battle of Gravelines both of which saw the French army savaged.
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Charles de Montmorency, Duke of Damville was a French aristocrat, military commander, rebel and Admiral during the French Wars of Religion. Damville was the son of Anne de Montmorency, chief favourite of Henri II and Madeleine of Savoy granting him a central place in French politics. As a result in 1562 he was elevated as lieutenant-general of the Île de France, serving under his elder brother François de Montmorency. In 1567, with the establishment of the king's brother Anjou as lieutenant-general of the French army, Méru joined his council to advise him on political matters. Méru participated in the siege of La Rochelle in 1573 under the direction of Anjou. Around this time he developed a proximity to the younger brother of the king Alençon.