Charles, Duke of Aumale

Charles I de Lorraine
Duc d'Aumale
Contemporary portrait of the duke
Born	c. 1555
Died	c. 1631 Bruxelles, Spanish Netherlands
Spouse	Marie de Lorraine
Issue Detail	Anne de Lorraine Marie de Lorraine
House	House of Lorraine
Father	Claude, Duke of Aumale
Mother	Louise de Brézé

Charles de Lorraine, duc d'Aumale (25 January 1555 – c. 1631, Brussels)^[1] was a French noble, military commander and governor during the latter French Wars of Religion. The son of Claude, Duke of Aumale and Louise de Brézé, Aumale inherited his families position in north eastern France, and his fathers title of Grand Veneur. Educated as a fervent Catholic, his clients engineered the creation of the first national Catholic Ligue in 1576, and he continued to support the remnants of the organisation after the Treaty of Bergerac caused much of the ligue to dissolve. During the sixth civil war that the ligue had induced, he fought with the king's brother Alençon at the sieges of La Charité-sur-Loire and Issoire. During the seventh civil war in 1579, he brought his ligueur forces to support the royal army under Marshal Matignon during the siege of La Fère but left on bitter terms with the commander when the siege was brought to a close on generous terms.

In 1584 Alençon died, leaving the Protestant Navarre as heir to the throne. This was unacceptable to Aumale, and the Lorraine family at large, and they engineered the refounding of the ligue to oppose his succession. In the civil war that followed with the crown, Aumale operated in his base of Picardie, seizing the town of Doullens in March and later marching on Reims, before the war was brought to a close in July, with Henri conceding to most of the ligueur demands, though not establishing Aumale as governor of Picardie. In the years that followed Aumale continued a low grade rebellion, and in 1587 captured Doullens again, alongside Corbie and Le Crotoy. In June a plot was engineered to capture the key port town of Boulogne held by a client of Aumale's enemy Épernon, but it failed. The king was outraged by these provocations but felt unable to confront Aumale and openly resume civil war. In early 1588 Aumale made another attempt on the town, this time by direct force as opposed to subterfuge, Épernon and his clients successfully resisted his assaults, and the town held. With an Estates General due to be called in late 1588 after the Day of the Barricades in Paris forced further concessions from the king, Aumale ensured the deputies from Picardie delivered to the main meeting in Blois the message that he should be governor of Picardie, and that Épernon should be divested of Boulogne. The king, increasingly unable to tolerate the corner he was backed into by the ligue, assassinated the duke of Guise, Aumale's cousin, on 23 December. In response much of the country went into rebellion against the crown. Paris which was already in rebellion appointed Aumale its governor, and he proceeded to help the rebel government (the Seize) purge royalists from possessing weapons. Aumale took a central role in the new ligueur administration of the country, and was resultingly declared guilty of lèse majesté in February 1589. In May, his forces attempted to recapture the town of Senlis for the ligue but were badly defeated by a royal force. That August the king was assassinated, revenge for the death of Guise, and the Protestant Navarre succeeded him.

By this time Aumale had been elected governor of Picardie by the local ligueur government, and he clashed with Navarre (now Henri IV) at the Battle of Arques in September 1589. With Henri's conversion to Catholicism in 1593, many of the ligueur towns in Picardie began to defect to the crown, and Aumale's position became increasingly tenuous. By 1595 he was the only member of his family who had not either defected to Navarre or entered negotiations, despite repeated attempts to bring him around. Aumale remained steadfast, and chose exile in the Spanish Netherlands. Though he would later have a change of heart, it was too late, and a death sentence had been pronounced against him for treason by the Paris Parlement. He fought with the Spanish at Amiens and Nieuwpoort in 1600, while his estates in France deteriorated. He died in 1631 in Bruxelles, still a Spanish exile.