Charles de Coucis

Charles de Coucis
seigneur de Burie
The château de Burie
Born	1492 Kingdom of France
Died	1565 (aged 72-3)

Charles de Coucis seigneur de Burie (1492-1565) was a Catholic military commander and lieutenant-general of Guyenne. Burie assisted the crown in its efforts to extinguish the embers of the Conspiracy of Amboise in 1560, investigating the situation in Poitiers for the court. This accomplished he returned to his lieutenant-generalship where he spent the next year attempting to suppress the Huguenots of the region. A moderate figure, he looked to find compromise as far as toleration of Protestantism was concerned, conceding the right of Protestants to hold their services in private, and seeking to provide them the right to bury their dead in their own cemetery.

In early 1562, the crown sent commissioners into the south, to investigate the disorders, and ensure the implementation of the Edict of January. These commissioners proved too partisan, for both Burie and Monluc, who had been assigned to the region to aid in the restoring of order, however before much could be accomplished with their replacements, civil war broke out. In his office of lieutenant-general, Burie had an important role to play in the control of Guyenne for the crown, and he devoted his efforts to quieting any potential disorder in Bordeaux. He was a cautious commander, and was unwilling to act when Monluc urged him to send his forces to catch the Protestant army of the region. Eventually persuaded by his subordinates, Burie provided troops for the Battle of Vergt where in combination with troops under Monluc, the Protestant army of Guyenne was crushed, a heavy blow to the Protestant cause in the first of the French Wars of Religion. In the peace that followed Burie continued to engage with the commissioners sent to the region, before dying in 1565.