Primary Contributors:
Ineke Huysman, Huygens ING
Louise de Coligny, by Willem Jacobsz. Delff. 1627. Engraving, 42.1 by 29.5 cm. (Koninklijke Verzamelingen, Den Haag, inv. no. PR-0087)
Louise de Coligny (1555–1620)
Louise de Coligny was the fourth wife of William of Orange (1533–1584). A daughter of Gaspard II de Coligny (1519–1572) and Charlotte de Laval (1530–1568), Louise was descended from two powerful French families, the Bourbons and the Montmorencys. Her father, who had been appointed admiral of France in 1552, was captured by the Spanish in 1557 at the siege of Saint-Quentin and during the ensuing two years in which he was held prisoner he converted to Calvinism. From 1562 he played a key role in the French Wars of Religion and, with the prince of Condé, stood at the head of the Huguenot army.
At the age of sixteen Louise married Charles de Teligny (1535–1572), a nobleman and soldier in the service of her father. However, both her father and husband were killed during the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572 and the young widow fled first to Savoy and subsequently to Switzerland, returning to France only in 1576. Six years later, in 1582, Louise received a marriage proposal from William of Orange, which—with the consent of the king of France—she accepted and the marriage took place in Antwerp on 12 April 1583. A little over a year later, William of Orange was murdered by Balthasar Gerard on 10 July 1584, an event that Louise herself witnessed. The couple’s only son, Frederik Hendrik, was just six months old.
Following her husband’s death, Louise served as guardian to the four daughters from his previous marriage to Charlotte de Bourbon and she formed close ties with both the grand pensionary Johan van Oldenbarnevelt and the theologian Johannes Uutenbogaert. In 1594–5 she returned to France to conduct marriage negotiations on behalf of two of her step-daughters with high-ranking Huguenot nobles and, following the introduction of her son Frederik Hendrik to the French court, she began to divide her time between the Dutch Republic and France, playing thereby a key role in communication between the two countries. During the conflict that erupted between her step-son Maurits and Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, she attempted to mediate and the night before van Oldenbarnevelt’s execution she requested—to no avail—an audience with Maurits.
In 1520 Louise made her final journey to France. In Fontainebleau, as she was visiting Maria de Medici, the queen mother and former regent of France, she died on 13 November. She was buried next to her second husband, William of Orange, in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft.
Partners and Additional Contributors
The metadata for this catalogue in EMLO was provided by the Huygens ING under the direction of researcher Dr Ineke Huysman. Huygens ING has digitized the documents in cooperation with the Royal Collections The Netherlands in The Hague, where most of the original letters are conserved (Archief A11d Louise, gravin van Coligny (1555-1620), echtgenote van Willem I, prins van Oranje).
This calendar of Louise’s correspondence has been prepared for publication as a part of a collaboration with EMLO and the associated Women’s Early Modern Letters Online [WEMLO] resource. Thanks are due to Professor James Daybell and Dr Kim McLean-Fiander, and to Dr Nadine Akkerman. Dr Huysman extends her thanks to Annashireen Eslamimoghaddam for her collation work with the metadata, while EMLO would like to thank its editorial team, funded by the Cultures of Knowledge project, for assistance in preparing this metadata for upload to the union catalogue.
Key Bibliographic Source(s)
P. Marchegay and L. Marlet, eds, Correspondance de Louise de Coligny, princesse d’Orange (1555–1620) (Paris, 1887).
J. Delaborde, Louise de Coligny. Princesse d’Orange, 2 vols. (Paris, 1890; reprinted Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1970).
Contents
Currently the catalogue contains metadata of 43 letters written in French that date between 1584 and 1617. Of these letters, 28 are from Louise, and 15 are addressed to her. In the future, further letters from Louise’s correspondence that are kept in other archives will be added.
Letter from Louise de Coligny to François van Aerssen, 18 August 1605. (Royal Collections, Archief Louise de Coligny, A11d; reproduced with kind permission from the Royal Collections The Netherlands)
Further resources
Selected Bibliography
S. Broomhall and J. van Gent, eds, Gender, power and identity in the early modern House of Orange-Nassau (Abingdon, 2016).
Jane Couchman and Ann Crabb, eds, Women’s letters across Europe, 1400–1700: form and persuasion (Ashgate, 2005).
G. Groen van Prinsterer, ed., Archives ou correspondance inédite de la Maison d’Orange-Nassau, Première série, 8 vols (Leiden, 1835–1847; part I has been corrected and reprinted, Leiden, 1841).
Additional resources
For further biographical information, see the the entries in Wikipedia and the Online Dictionary of Dutch Women.
Women’s Early Modern Letters Online [WEMLO] project page.
WEMLO network and resources hub.
The Wives of the Stadtholders: an exhibition (EMLO, September 2016).