Louise de Montmorency

Louise de Montmorency
Louise de Montmorency depicted on a stained glass window in the Saint-Martin de Montmorency collegiate church, around 1525.
Born	1496
Died	June 12, 1547(1547-06-12) (aged 50–51)
Spouse(s)	Ferri de Mailly Gaspard I de Coligny
Children	Odet Gaspard II Francois
Parents	Guillaume de Montmorency (father) Anne Pot (mother)

Louise de Montmorency (1496 – 12 June 1547[1]) was a French aristocrat and courtier. She served as Première dame d'honneur from 1530 to 1535 to the Queen of France, Eleanor of Austria, spouse to Francis I of France. She also played an important role within patronage and as a supporter of Calvinism.

Life

Louise was the daughter of Guillaume de Montmorency and Anne Pot and younger sister of Anne de Montmorency, Constable of France.[2]

In 1530, Louise was appointed Première dame d'honneur to the new queen, Eleanor of Austria, a new court office installed just a few years earlier, which made her responsible for all of the other ladies-in-waiting of the queen.[3] She retired in 1535 and was replaced by Mme de Givry.[4]

Louise had considerable patronage power independently of her husband,[5][6] and had an important role in spreading the influence of Calvinism in France in the 16th Century.[7]

Marriages

Louise married her first husband, Ferri de Mailly, in 1511.[2] This marriage produced a daughter;

• Madeleine de Mailly.[2]

Ferry died in 1513, and Louise remarried in 1514 to Gaspard I de Coligny.[8] From her second marriage she had three sons, all of whom played important roles in the first period of the French Wars of Religion:

• Odet, Cardinal de Châtillon[2]
• Gaspard, Admiral of France[2]
• François, Seigneur d'Andelot.[8]

Family tree

v t e Coligny family tree
Guillaume de Montmorency Anne Pot Gaspard I Louise de Montmorency Anne de Montmorency Madeleine of Savoy Charlotte de Laval Gaspard II Odet François François de Montmorency Henri Charles de Montmorency-Damville Louise François Charles Paul de Coligny [fr] Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange Gaspard III Guy XX de Laval William II of Orange Gaspard IV de Coligny [fr] Henriette Anne George II of Württemberg-Montbéliard William III of England Eleonore Leopold
Notes:

References

1. Bersier 1884, p. 29.
2. Moreton-Macdonald 1915, p. 39.
3. Shimizu 1970, p. 22.
4. Roche 2010.
5. Kettering 1989, p. 817-841.
6. Davies 2002, p. 665-685.
7. Noble 2002.
8. Holt 1999, p. 219.

Sources

• Bersier, Eugène (1884). Coligny; The Earlier Life of the Great Huguenot. Translated by Holmden, Annie Harwood. London: Hodder and Stoughton. OCLC 1099279.
• Davies, Joan (2002). "The Montmorencys and the Abbey of Sainte Trinité, Caen: Politics, Profit and Reform" (PDF). The Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 53 (4): 665–685. doi:10.1017/S002204690200427X.
• Holt, Mack P. (1999). The French Wars of Religion, 1562-1629. Cambridge University Press.
• Kettering, Sharon (1989). "The patronage power of early modern French noblewomen". The Historical Journal. 32, No. 4 (Dec.) (4): 817–841. doi:10.1017/S0018246X00015727. JSTOR 2639686. S2CID 154262093.
• Moreton-Macdonald, John Ronald (1915). A History of France. Vol. 2. The Macmillan Company.
• Noble, Graham (2002). "The Development of Protestantism in 16th Century France". History Review.
• Roche, Aline (2010). "Une perle de pris : la maison de la reine Eléonore d'Autriche". Cour de France.fr (in French). Archived from the original on 2013-12-03.
• Shimizu, J. (1970). Conflict of Loyalties, Politics and Religion in the Career of Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France, 1519-1572. Librairie Droz.