Montgomery, Gabriel de Lorges

Gabriel was the son of Jacques I de Lorges, Count of Montgomery, and Claude de la Boissiere, Countess de Duchey. The genus Montgomery in the XI century was divided into Norman and Scottish branches . Gabriel's father, who owned estates in the north of France, served as captain of the Scottish Guard under Francis I (Gabriel later inherited this position). However, he became famous not only for feats of arms. There was a story that in 1521, Jacques de Montgomery accidentally wounded the young king while playing snowballs. Here is how A. Dumas describes this case:

The game was this unsafe, although quite common at that time. The players were divided into two parties: one defended the house, the other stormed it with snowballs ... After the game they decided to keep warm. The fire went out in the fireplace, and all these young tomboys, pushing and screaming, wanted to light it themselves. Jacques the first jumped to the fireplace with a burning head in his hands and, encountering a hesitant Francis, inadvertently severely hit him with a red-hot head in the face. The king escaped, fortunately, only a wound, however, quite severe, and the ugly scar left from her served as the basis for a new fashion, introduced then by Francis I: long beards and short hair.

If this episode really took place, it remains only to marvel at the coincidence of the fate of the father and son of Montgomery, who injured their kings.

From June 28 to June 30, 1559, a tournament was held at the Tournel Palace in Paris, dedicated to the marriage of the daughter of King Elizabeth with Philip II of Spain and the sister of King Margarita with the Duke of Savoy , as well as the conclusion of the Cato-Cambresian peace . On the second day, when the competition was nearing its end, Henry II , who was defeated in an equestrian fight with Montgomery, demanded revenge from the Count. Gabriel, at the sight of the heated king, refused. However, Henry did not let up. To the queen's concern , he replied: "I dedicate this fight to you." Spurring the horses, the opponents rushed at each other. The visor of the royal helmet moved, and when the fighters caught up with each other, a piece of Gabriel’s spear accidentally buried the king in the face, entering his right eye and leaving his ear. Losing consciousness, Henry asked the servants not to accuse Montgomery of intentional murder, since he himself was to blame.

The wound was fatal; even the intervention of the best surgeon of that time, master Ambroise Pare, did not save. On July 10, 1559, the king passed away. Montgomery was suspended from service and went to England .

In England, Gabriel began to study theology and eventually accepted the ideas of the Reformation . Returning to France, he settled in Normandy: he rebuilt the chapel of Saint-Germain in his castle into a Protestant church. Gabriel was on friendly terms with the Huguenot leaders: in Normandy he was visited by Admiral Coligny and Prince Conde . But Montgomery still did not take an active part in the political struggle until the end of the reign of Francis II . After the authorities in the person of Giza and Catherine de Medici began to openly exterminate the Protestants, the count decided to defend his fellow believers with weapons in their hands. Since the Battle of Dreux (1562), there has not been such a battle in which he did not distinguish himself.

Montgomery miraculously survived on Bartholomew’s night : some wounded Huguenot swam across the Seine to warn him of the massacre that had begun. Gabriel fled from Paris to Bourges , suddenly attacked the city and captured it. From there he headed to Rouen , where he rebelled, thanks to which all of Normandy came under the rule of the Huguenots. Then he rushed to La Rochelle and contributed to the fact that the siege of the fortress cost the royal troops 40,000 lives. After the honorable capitulation of La Rochelle, Gabriel, together with the horse detachment, rushed to Sancerre , where, from a handful of armed residents, he created a detachment that survived the siege of the six thousandth royal corps for four months and surrendered only under very favorable conditions.

Having successfully fought on the continent, Montgomery again sailed to England, where he negotiated with Elizabeth on the provision of military assistance to the Huguenots. The French government raised the issue of extradition of the count several times, but the Queen of England refused.

In 1574, Gabriel, at the head of a six-thousandth detachment, landed with his elder sons Jacques and Gabriel on the Cotantin Peninsula. Three armies were sent to meet him, led by the Marshal of France, the Duke de Mantignon . Montgomery with his people sat down in Saint-Lo , the duke besieged him. The forces were too unequal, and Gabriel with a small cavalry detachment fled for help to Domfront . However, the main goal of the campaign of Mantignon was not to take Saint-Lo , but to capture Montgomery. Marshal besieged Domfront. Montgomery resisted fiercely, but when he ran out of food and gunpowder, and only 14 of the besieged survived, he surrendered, provided that he was saved. But too great was the hatred of the widow count of Henry II killed by him. Catherine de Medici, taking full advantage of the power ( Charles IX died at that moment, and the future Henry III was en route from Warsaw to Paris ), gave the order to execute Montgomery. The count said goodbye to life on June 26, 1574 on Grevskaya Square . His property was confiscated, his descendants were stripped of the title. Before his death, Montgomery told the executioner: "Tell my children that if they do not return what they have taken from me, I will curse them from the grave."

The sons of the count fulfilled their father’s last will: two of them subsequently became Earls of Montgomery. At the beginning of the XVII century, Gabriel II built a new castle in Duxi, as if symbolizing the return of his legal possessions.

In 1550, Gabriel married Isabo de la Touche. They had 4 daughters (Suzanne, Elizabeth, Claude, Robert) and as many sons:

• Jacques II (1551-1590)
• Gideon (d. 1596)
• Gilles (1558-1596)
• Gabriel II (1565-1635)

Abbot Brantom writes about Earl de Montgomery in his memoirs. Madame de Lafayette in the novel " Princess of Cleves " describes in detail the scene of the death of Henry II. Gabriel is the protagonist of Alexander Dumas, the father of Two Diana . The main intrigue of the work (the love of Gabriel and Diana de Castro , daughter of Diana de Poitiers ) is pure fiction, as well as the version that Montgomery intentionally killed the king, avenging the death of his father. However, the hero’s throwing between two political parties (both the Duke de Guise and Admiral Coligny sympathize with Gabriel) are similar to those that actually happened.

The duel between Montgomery and the king was the last in the history of European knightly tournaments . The absurd death of Henry II was a formal reason for their ban.

Since the murder of her husband, Catherine de Medici, the Tournel Palace ( Hôtel des Tournelles ) became so hated that she ordered a horse market to be set up in it, and then completely ordered it to be demolished. Under Henry IV , it was decided to set up a square for royal festivities in this place, surrounded by houses for courtiers. So, in the words of Victor Hugo , "one stroke of the spear created the Vosges Square ."

It is possible that Pushkin , writing "The Mean Knight, " kept in mind the duel of Montgomery and the king. No wonder Pushkin’s character Albert, examining his helmet punched in the tournament, sighs: “What a blow! Damned Earl of Delors! ” ^[1]

• Mongomery, Gabrielle // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Landurant, Alain. Montgommery le régicide. - Paris: Tallandier, 1988 .-- ISBN 2-235-01773-8 .
• The Papacy and the Levant, (1204-1571) .: The sixteenth century from Julius III to Pius V on Google Books
• Further information on the life of Gabriel, compte de Montgomery and the siege of Domfront