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Francis, Duke of Guise — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Military career

In 1551, he was created Grand Chamberlain of France. He won international renown in 1552 when he successfully defended the city of Metz from the forces of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and defeated the imperial troops again at the Battle of Renty in 1554. but the Truce of Vaucelles temporarily curtailed his military activity.

He led an army into Italy in 1557 to aid Pope Paul IV, operating in conjunction with Brissac to capture Valenza. There they parted ways. Guise continued east along the Po Valley with 16,000 men. Under instructions to take Parma, he assessed that as unfeasible, and instead proposed attacking Florence to secure lines south. The duke of Tuscany, fearing such a possibility, diplomatically reached out to Henry II and Guise was informed of the negotiations.

Advancing into Naples in April, his troops became restless from lack of pay. Hearing reports that the Duke of Alba was marching along the Adriatic coast with an army of 18,000 aiming to cut his supply, Guise sought battle, but Alba was evasive. Guise turned towards Campli and devastated it, and followed besieging the strategic city of Civitella. However, the siege was unsuccessful, and upon the arrival of Alba with a reinforced army of 25,000, Guise retreated out of Naples.

As Alba and Marcantonio Colonna marched towards Rome, Guise moved to reinforce the city. However, Guise was now instructed by king Henry to break off his Naples campaign and return to his campaign in Lombardy. This order in turn was superseded by the disastrous defeat of Montmorency at the Battle of St. Quentin.

Guise was recalled to France, and hurriedly made Lieutenant-General. Taking the field, he captured Calais from the English on 7 January 1558—an enormous propaganda victory for France—then Thionville and Arlon that summer, and was preparing to advance into Luxembourg when the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis was signed. Throughout the reign of Henry II, Guise was one of the premier military figures of France, courteous, affable, and frank, and largely popular, the "grand duc de Guise" as his contemporary Brantôme called him.

The accession of Francis II of France (10 July 1559), husband of Guise's niece Mary, Queen of Scots, was a triumph for the Guise family. Montmorency, conscious there was no place for him in the new order, withdrew from court. The Duke of Guise and his brother, Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine were supreme in the royal council. Occasionally he signed public acts in the royal manner, with his baptismal name only.

The Wars of Religion

In reaction to the dominating power at court of the Catholic Guises, La Renaudie, a Protestant gentleman of Périgord, perhaps with the indirect encouragement of Louis of Bourbon, Prince of Condé, organised a palace coup, the conspiracy of Amboise, to seize the person of the Duke of Guise and his brother Charles, the Cardinal of Lorraine. When the ill-organised plot was put off for six days, it was discovered by the court well ahead of time. On 12 March 1560, the Huguenots stormed the Château d'Amboise, to which the Guises had moved the young king and queen for safety. The uprising was violently suppressed, with 1,200 executed, many within sight of the castle. In the immediate aftermath Condé was obliged to flee the court, and the power of the Guises was supreme. The discourse which Coligny, leader of the Huguenots, pronounced against les Guises in the Assembly of Notables at Fontainebleau (August 1560), did not influence King Francis II in the least, but resulted rather in the imprisonment of Condé, at Charles's behest.

However, the king died on 5 December 1560, making Mary, Queen of Scots a widow, and of little political importance in France. The Guises lost status alongside her, thus making a year full of calamity for the Guises both in Scotland and France. Within a year and a half, their influence waxed great and waned. After the accession of Charles IX, the Duke of Guise lived in retirement on his estates.

The regent, Catherine de' Medici, was at first inclined to favour the Protestants. To defend the Catholic cause, the Duke of Guise, together with his old enemy, the Constable de Montmorency and the Maréchal de Saint-André formed the so-called triumvirate opposed to the policy of concessions which Catherine de' Medici attempted to inaugurate in favour of the Protestants. His former military hero's public image was changing: "he could not serve for long as the military executive of this extreme political, ultra-montane, pro-Spanish junta without attracting his share of odium," N. M. Sutherland has observed in describing the lead-up to his assassination.

The plan of the Triumvirate was to treat with Habsburg Spain and the Holy See, and also to come to an understanding with the Lutheran princes of Germany to induce them to abandon the idea of covertly backing the French Protestants. About July 1561, Guise wrote to this effect to the Duke of Württemberg. The Colloquy at Poissy (September and October 1561) between theologians of the two confessions was fruitless, and the conciliation policy of Catherine de' Medici was defeated. From 15 to 18 February 1562, Guise visited the Duke of Württemberg at Saverne, and convinced him that if the conference at Poissy had failed, the fault was that of the Calvinists.

As Guise passed through Wassy-sur-Blaise on his way to Paris (1 March 1562), a massacre of Protestants took place. It is not known to what extent he was responsible for this, but the Massacre of Vassy kindled open military conflict in the French Wars of Religion. The siege of Bourges in September was the opening episode, then Rouen was retaken from the Protestants by Guise after a month's siege (October); the Battle of Dreux (19 December), at which Montmorency was taken prisoner and Saint-André slain, was in the end turned by Guise to the advantage of the Catholic cause, and Condé, leader of the Huguenots, was taken prisoner.