Henri III de la Trémoïlle, duc de Thouars

Henri de La Trémoille (22 December 1598 – 21 January 1674) was the 3rd Duke of Thouars, 2nd Duke of La Tremoille, and Prince of Talmond and

Taranto Taranto (, also ; ; nap, label= Tarantino, Tarde; Latin: Tarentum; Old Italian: ''Tarento''; Ancient Greek: Τάρᾱς) is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto, serving as an important com ...

. He was the son of

Claude de La Trémoille Claude de La Trémoille, 2nd Duke of Thouars (1566 – 25 October 1604) was a sixteenth-century French nobleman of the La Tremoille family. He was the son of Louis III de La Trémoille and his wife, Jeanne de Montmorency. King Henry IV of Fra ...

and his wife, Charlotte Brabantina of Nassau, and a descendant of the medieval general Louis II de La Trémoille.

Family

La Trémoille married his first cousin, Marie de La Tour d'Auvergne, in 1619. She was the daughter of

Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne (''titular'' Duke of Bouillon, ''jure uxoris'', ''comte de Montfort et Negrepelisse, vicomte de Turenne, Castillon, et Lanquais'') (28 September 1555 – 25 March 1623) was a member of the powerful (then Huguenot) House ...

, and his second wife

Countess Elisabeth of Nassau Countess Elisabeth of Nassau (''Elisabeth Flandrika'') ( Middelburg, 26 April 1577 – Sedan, 3 September 1642) was the second daughter of prince William of Orange and his third spouse Charlotte of Bourbon, and Duchess of Bouillon by marriage t ...

. They had five children: Henri Charles, Louis Maurice, Élisabeth, Marie Charlotte de la Trémoille, and Armand-Charles.

Career

La Trémoille's father, Claude, had converted to

Protestantism Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

during the

French Wars of Religion The French Wars of Religion is the term which is used in reference to a period of civil war between French Catholics and Protestants, commonly called Huguenots, which lasted from 1562 to 1598. According to estimates, between two and four mi ...

, but La Trémoille converted to

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

around the time Cardinal Richelieu and

Louis XIII Louis XIII (; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown ...

suppressed the

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

rebellion at the

siege of La Rochelle The siege of La Rochelle (, or sometimes ) was a result of a war between the French royal forces of Louis XIII of France and the Huguenots of La Rochelle in 1627–28. The siege marked the height of the struggle between the Catholics and the Pr ...

in 1628. His wife sent the children to her relatives in the Netherlands, making sure they were brought up Calvinist. She also maintained a Reformed court with church services, something which her husband tolerated. Following the siege, La Trémoille continued to serve in the French army, being wounded in action in Italy. Following that campaign, La Trémoille switched to a political career. In 1668, Henri afflicted with the

gout Gout ( ) is a form of inflammatory arthritis characterized by recurrent attacks of a red, tender, hot and swollen joint, caused by deposition of monosodium urate monohydrate crystals. Pain typically comes on rapidly, reaching maximal intens ...

, left the businesses of his duchy to his elder son. He died on 21 January 1674, seventy-five years old, and was buried in Thouars.

Ancestry and claims

La Trémoille was the heir-general of

Frederick IV of Naples Frederick (April 19, 1452 – November 9, 1504), sometimes called Frederick IV or Frederick of Aragon, was the last Kingdom of Naples, King of Naples from the Neapolitan branch of the House of Trastámara, ruling from 1496 to 1501. He was the seco ...

and his first wife

Anne of Savoy Anne of Savoy, Princess of Squillace, Altamura, and Taranto (1 June 1455 – February 1480) was the first wife of King Frederick IV. She died 16 years before he succeeded to the Neapolitan throne, so she was never queen consort. Anne was a member ...

, and succeeded to the Cypriot claims to the title of

King of Jerusalem The King of Jerusalem was the supreme ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, a Crusader state founded in Jerusalem by the Latin Catholic leaders of the First Crusade, when the city was conquered in 1099. Godfrey of Bouillon, the first ruler of t ...

when his father died. He was the heir-general of Anne of Savoy, whose daughter Charlotte became in 1499 the ''de jure'' heiress of the claim of the Kings of Cyprus to the throne of Jerusalem. Since Frederick IV was the second son of

Isabella of Clermont Isabella of Clermont ( – 30 March 1465), also known as Isabella of Taranto, was queen of Naples as the first wife of King Ferdinand I of Naples, and a feudatory of the kingdom as the holder and ruling Princess of the Principality of Taranto in ...

and Ferdinand I of Naples, he also succeeded to the Brienne claims to

Kingdom of Jerusalem The Kingdom of Jerusalem ( la, Regnum Hierosolymitanum; fro, Roiaume de Jherusalem), officially known as the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem or the Frankish Kingdom of Palestine,Example (title of works): was a Crusader state that was establish ...

of his distant cousin John Casimir of Poland at the latter's death 1672, uniting the successions of Brienne and of Cyprus to the ''de jure'' crown of Jerusalem. 1598 births 1674 deaths French Roman Catholics Converts to Roman Catholicism from Calvinism Henry de La Tremoille French generals Henri Dukes of Thouars Princes of Taranto 16th-century French people 17th-century French people People of Byzantine descent 17th-century peers of France {{France-noble-stub