Louise de Coligny

Louise de Coligny
Princess consort of Orange
Tenure 24 April 1583 – 10 July 1584
Born (1555-09-23)23 September 1555
Châtillon-sur-Loing
Died 9 November 1620(1620-11-09) (aged 65)
Fontainebleau
Spouse Charles de Teligny
William I, Prince of Orange
Issue Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange
House Coligny
Father Gaspard II de Coligny
Mother Charlotte de Laval
Religion Huguenot

Louise de Coligny (23 September 1555 – 9 November 1620) was a Princess consort of Orange as the fourth and last spouse of William the Silent. She was the daughter of Gaspard II de Coligny and Charlotte de Laval.

Biography

Louise was born at Châtillon-sur-Loing. Her parents saw to it that she received a humanist education.[1] When she was sixteen, she married Protestant Charles de Téligny (1571). Both he and her father were murdered at the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. Like her murdered father, she was a French Huguenot and after the massacre (August 1572 -Paris), she spent ten years in the Swiss Confederacy.

She then married William the Silent on 24 April 1583. She became the mother of Frederick Henry in 1584, William's fourth legitimate son and future prince of Orange. It is said that she warned her husband about Balthasar Gérard, because she thought him sinister. Catholic Gérard murdered William in July 1584 in Delft.

After her husband was murdered, she raised their son and William's six daughters from his third marriage to Charlotte of Bourbon. During her life she remained an advocate for Protestantism and she corresponded with many important figures of that time, like Elizabeth I of England, Henry IV of France, Marie de' Medici and Philippe de Mornay, as well as with her many stepchildren. She died (65) at Fontainebleau.

Notes

  1. ↑ Couchman & Crabb 2005, p. 163.

References

  • Couchman, Jane; Crabb, Ann (2005). Women's letters across Europe, 1400–1700: form and persuasion. Ashgate.
  • "Willem van Oranje: Biografie" last accessed April 10, 2007
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