Bourbon, CHARLES, DUC DU BOURBONNAIS

Bourbon, CHARLES, DUC DU BOURBONNAIS, styled CONSTABLE DE BOURBON, born 1490, was the son of the Count of Montpensier. Through the death of his elder brother, and his marriage with the only daughter of the Duke of Bourbon, he united in his own hands the vast estates of both these branches of the Bourbon family. His great ability, bravery, and large possessions soon made him the first subject of France. For his exploits at the battle of Marignano in 1515 he was raised to the rank of Constable of France and governor of Milan. But at the French court there was a strong party that sought to undermine him in the favour of the king, Francis I. It is said that they were assisted in their intrigues by the widowed mother of Francis, because Bourbon, himself then a widower, had refused her hand. In this way Bourbon was threatened with the loss of the lands brought him by his wife, and of many of his other dignities. Deeply injured, he renounced the service of France, and concluded a private alliance with the Emperor Charles V., and with Henry VIII. of England. The former agreed to give him in marriage his sister, Eleonora, who had Portugal as her jointure, and to make an independent kingdom for him of Provence and Dauphiné, with his own possessions of the Bourbonnais and Auvergne. The king, who was engaged in an expedition to Italy, received intelligence of this conspiracy, and proceeding in person to the Constable, offered him restoration to favour and also of his estates. The Constable, however, did not trust him, but fled in disguise from France in 1523. In order not to appear as a fugitive to the Spanish army, which awaited him in Lombardy, he drew around him a force of German mercenaries, and soon contrived to gain their entire attachment. He took the field in 1524 against his own country, and invaded France, but failed at the siege of Marseilles. In the following year, however, he contributed to the great victory of Pavia, in which Francis I. was taken prisoner by the Spaniards. But the victory did nothing to restore Bourbon to his old position. Charles V. distrusted him, and his interests were not considered in the treaty of peace between France and Spain in 1526. He was, however, made Duke of Milan by Charles, and appointed Spanish commander in Northern Italy. Along with George of Frundsberg he led the mixed army of Spanish and German mercenaries that stormed and plundered Rome in 1527. Bourbon fell in the fierce struggle by which the fortifications were carried. Resolved to conquer or die, he led his troops in the most impetuous manner, and with his own hands eagerly seized a scaling-ladder, in order to make his way over a weak place of the walls, when he was mortally wounded by a bullet, which Benvenuto Cellini afterwards asserted that he had shot. For a time his death was kept secret from the storming army under his command. When the army departed from Rome two months after, his corpse, which the soldiers would not part with, was taken with them, and buried at Gaeta, under a magnificent monument, which, however, was afterwards destroyed.