Charles of Orléans (1459 – 1 January 1496) () was the
Count of Angoulême from 1467 until his death. He succeeded his father,
John, and was initially under the regency of his mother, Marguerite de Rohan, assisted by Jean I de La Rochefoucauld, one of his vassals.
Charles commissioned the luxuriously illustrated ''
Heures de Charles d'Angoulême
The Heures de Charles d'Angoulême is a book of hours commissioned in the late 15th century, probably around 1480, by Charles, Count of Angoulême, father of king Francis I of France. It is now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, und ...
''.
Family
Charles was a grandson of
Louis I, Duke of Orléans, a younger son of King
Charles V of France. He was thus a member of the Orléans cadet branch of the ruling
House of Valois. The Orléans came to the throne in 1498 in the person of Charles's cousin
Louis XII, who was followed in 1515 by Charles's own son
Francis I.
Marriage and issue
Charles married
Louise of Savoy, daughter of
Philip the Landless and
Margaret of Bourbon, on 16 February 1488.
They had:
*
Marguerite of Angoulême
Marguerite de Navarre (french: Marguerite d'Angoulême, ''Marguerite d'Alençon''; 11 April 149221 December 1549), also known as Marguerite of Angoulême and Margaret of Navarre, was a princess of France, Duchess of Alençon and Berry, and Queen ...
(11 April 1492 – 21 December 1549)
*
François of Angoulême (12 September 1494 – 31 March 1547), who became
King of France
France was ruled by monarchs from the establishment of the Kingdom of West Francia in 843 until the end of the Second French Empire in 1870, with several interruptions.
Classical French historiography usually regards Clovis I () as the first ...
as Francis I.
Charles also had two illegitimate daughters by his mistress Jeanne (often mistakenly called Antoinette by confusion with a member of a quite distinct family by the same name) de Polignac, Dame de Combronde, who was his wife's
lady-in-waiting
A lady-in-waiting or court lady is a female personal assistant at a court, attending on a royal woman or a high-ranking noblewoman. Historically, in Europe, a lady-in-waiting was often a noblewoman but of lower rank than the woman to whom sh ...
:
*
Jeanne d'Angoulême
Jeanne d'Angoulême, Countess of Bar-sur-Seine ( – after 1531/1538), ''Dame de Givry'', ''Baroness of Pagny and of Mirebeau'', was an illegitimate half-sister of King Francis I of France and princess Marguerite de Navarre. She was created ''su ...
(c. 1490 – after 1531/1538), married firstly Jean Aubin, Seigneur de Malicorne, and secondly, Jean IV de Longwy, Baron of Pagny, by whom she had three daughters. The youngest,
Jacqueline de Longwy (died 28 August 1561), in her own turn married
Louis III de Bourbon, Duke of Montpensier.
* Madeleine d'Angoulême, Abbess of Fontevrault (died 26 October 1543)
He also had an illegitimate daughter by mistress Jeanne Le Conte:
* Souveraine d'Angoulême (died 23 February 1551), married Michel III de Gaillard, Seigneur de Chilly. In 1534 Married French Ambassador Louis de Perreau, Sieur de Castillon.
Ancestry
References
Sources
*
*
House of Valois-Angoulême
Counts of Angoulême
1459 births
1496 deaths
15th-century peers of France
{{Europe-royal-stub