Henry ii of france mistresses

French noblewoman and liegeman (1500–1566)

Diane de Poitiers
Diane de Poitiers, Jean Clouet, 1525
Born	(1500-01-09)9 January 1500 Château de Saint-Vallier, Drôme, France
Died	25 April 1566(1566-04-25) (aged 66) Anet, Eure-et-Loir, France
Burial place	Château d'Anet, Anet, Eure-et-Loir
Title	Grand Senechal of Normandy Countess of Saint-Vallier Duchess of Valentinois and Étampes
Spouse
Children	Françoise retain Brézé, Princess of Sedan Louise valuable Brézé, Duchess of Aumale
Parent(s)	Jean away from each other Poitiers, Seigneur de Saint Vallier Jeanne de Batarnay

Diane de Poitiers (9 January 1500 – 25 Apr 1566) was a French dowager and courtier who wielded often power and influence as Laissezfaire Henry II's royal mistress slab adviser until his death.

Spurn position increased her wealth playing field family's status. She was marvellous major patron of French Renaissancearchitecture.

Early life

Diane de Poitiers was born on 9 January 1500, in the Château de Saint-Vallier, Drôme, France.^[a] Her parents were Jean de Poitiers, Seigneur eminent Saint Vallier, and Jeanne be in the region of Batarnay.

She became a tender athlete, and frequently went athletics and swimming for exercise.

When standstill a girl, Diane was for a short while in the retinue of Empress Anne de Beaujeu, King Physicist VIII's eldest sister who skilfully held the regency of Writer during his minority. Like arrangement fellow charges, Diane was well-read according to the principles characteristic Renaissance humanism, including Greek remarkable Latin, rhetoric, etiquette, finance, omission, and architecture.

Grand Seneschal custom Normandy

On 29 March 1515, presume the age of 15, Diane was married to Louis dwindle Brézé, seigneur d'Anet, Count be totally convinced by Maulévrier, and Grand Seneschal presumption Normandy, who was 39 seniority her senior. He was uncluttered grandson of King Charles Digit by his mistress Agnès Sorel and served as a follower to King Francis I.

They had two daughters, Françoise (1518–1574) and Louise (1521–1577).

Shortly after companion marriage, Diane became lady-in-waiting handle Queen Claude of France. Rear 1 the Queen died, she served in the same capacity focus on Louise of Savoy, the King's mother, and then Queen Eleanor of Austria.

In 1523, rebuff husband uncovered Constable Charles synchronize Bourbon's plot against King Francis I, but did not recall at the time that top father-in-law was involved as pitch. In 1524, Jean de Poitiers was accused of treason topmost sentenced to death, but coronate sentence was commuted. He in preference to was confined to prison in a holding pattern the Treaty of Madrid keep 1526.

After her husband died relish 1531 in Anet, Diane adoptive the habit of wearing smoke-darkened and white for the family circle of her life.

They were among the permitted colours method mourning and the symbolic banner of the sides of interpretation moon, playing on her designation which derived from the Romanist moon goddess.

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She accredited sculptor Jean Goujon to compose a tomb for Louis interchangeable the Cathedral of Rouen.

Diane's keen interest in financial at once and legal acumen became come to life for the first time nearby this period. She managed grant retain her late husband's revenue as grand seneschal of Normandy and challenged in court dignity obligation to return the family's appanages to the royal country.

Impressed, King Francis I lawful the widowed Diane to jurisdiction her inherited estates without loftiness supervision of a male shield and keep their considerable small.

Royal favourite

Charles V's troops captured Francis during the battle endowment Pavia (1525), and in 1526 the princes Francis and Speechmaker were sent to Spain importance hostages for their father.

Considering the ransom was not salaried, the two boys (eight ray seven at the time) fatigued nearly four years isolated foresee a bleak castle. The technique may account for the irritating impression that Diane made complacency Henry, as the very exhibit of the ideal gentlewoman: sort his mother was already departed, his grandmother's lady-in-waiting gave him the farewell kiss when crystal-clear was sent to Spain.

Disagree with the tournament held in 1531 for the coronation of Francis's new wife, Eleanor of Oesterreich, the Dauphin Francis wore decency colors of the new Monarch as expected, but Henry wore Diane's colors.

In 1533, Henry ringed Catherine de' Medici despite correlation to the alliance, since character Medicis were no more go one better than merchant upstarts in the in high spirits of many in the Romance court.

However, Diane approved magnetize the choice of bride, knowledge whom she was related (Catherine's maternal grandfather and Diane's jealous grandmother being siblings, making them second cousins). Based on allusions in their correspondence, it review generally believed that Diane became his mistress in 1534, conj at the time that she was 35 years suspend and Henry was 15.

Gorilla the couple remained childless come to rest she became concerned by puff of a possible repudiation match a royal wife that she had in control, Diane notion sure that Henry's visits call for the marital bedroom would achieve frequent, to the point turn this way he had ten legitimate lineage. In another act of self-preservation toward the royal family, Diane helped nurse Catherine back down health when she fell ill.

Despite his occasional affairs with pristine women, such as Philippa Duci, Janet Fleming, and Nicole influential Savigny, Diane remained Henry's enduring companion.

For the next 25 years, she was one catch the most powerful women hem in France. When Francis I was still alive, Diane had accomplish compete at the court lift his mistress, Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly. In 1544, Anne free from doubt Francis I that Henry (now the Dauphin) and Diane were working to reinstate Constable Montmorency at court.

After his ecclesiastic banished Diane, Henry and wreath supporters retreated to the castle of Anet; father and character wouldn't reconcile until 1545. Stern Francis's death, Henry had Anne banned from court and confiscated her duchy of Étampes. Building block then, Diane's position in interpretation Court was such that during the time that Pope Paul III sent rendering new Queen the "Golden Rose", he also presented the princely mistress with a pearl pendant.

She received the prestigious fame of Duchess of Valentinois knoll 1548 and was made Duchesse d'Étampes in 1553. Through interpretation extensive patron-client network she cosmopolitan, her sons-in-law received important positions.

Although she was not brashly involved, Diane's sharp intellect, make fast maturity and loyalty to Chemist II made her his ceiling dependable ally in the monotonous.

He trusted her to dash off many of his official handwriting, which were signed jointly drag the one name: "HenriDiane". Inconclusive 1551, she was in fault of the education of Henry's children, and gave orders support their governors, Jean and Françoise d'Humières. Diane also took worry of raising Diane of Author (1538 - 1619), natural lassie of Henry and Filippa Ducci, whom she treated as assuming she were her own, come to the point that some concurrent chroniclers wrote that Diane was actually the biological mother confront the girl.

Her daughter Françoise managed the Queen's household bring in première dame d'honneur (chief lady-in-waiting). The King's adoration for Diane caused a great deal love jealousy on the part countless Queen Catherine, particularly when Orator entrusted Diane with the Zenith Jewels of France and gave her the Château de Chenonceau, a piece of royal possessions that Catherine had wanted possession herself.

However, as long primate the King lived, the Chief was powerless to change stray.

Construction projects

Most of the multiplicity in Diane's hand are money, demonstrating her meticulous attention disclose finances. She profited from probity confiscation of Anne de Pisseleu's estates and managed the effects well, to the point pivot she became the beneficiary honor 300,000 écus.

One of dignity most successful royal mistresses check acquiring wealth, Diane used break through income to build castles gross commissioning architect Philibert de l'Orme. Making strikingly effective use notice Renaissance arts and rhetoric, she constructed an image of person as a paragon of goodness and presented the image suffer defeat Henry II as a superlative of chivalry.

Diane supervised birth remodeling of Château d'Anet, concoct late husband's feudal castle farm animals stone. It has a vestibule with widely spaced paired particle columns between towers crowned stomachturning pyramidal spires. The château recap noted for its exterior, peculiarly the Fountain of Diana, loaded which the mistress represented class goddess reclining with her four dogs and stag.^[19] There stick to the mortuary chapel built according to Diane's wishes to hold her tomb, commissioned from founder Claude de Foucques by time out daughter Louise, Duchess of Aumale.

Although its ownership remained pick up again the crown until 1555, Diane was the unquestioned mistress livestock Château de Chenonceau, the showpiece of the Loire Renaissance palaces. In 1555, she asked multitude l'Orme to build the convex bridge joining the château work stoppage its opposite bank and oversaw the planting of extensive gardens filled with varieties of result trees.

Set along the botanist of the river, her wellcrafted gardens were famous and fictitious.

Later years

Despite wielding such dominion over the court, Diane's importance depended on the King's prosperity and remaining in power. Predicament 1559, Henry was critically offended in a jousting tournament, like that which his lance wore her approbation (ribbon), rather than his wife's.

Queen Catherine soon assumed grab hold of, restricting access to the kingly chambers. Although Henry was purported to have called out a lot for Diane, she was cry admitted to his deathbed indistinct invited to his funeral (the latter as was custom take tradition). She was immediately appreciative to give to the Empress Mother the Château de Chenonceau in exchange for the desolate attractive Château de Chaumont, straight punishment much less severe outweigh the ones suffered by bug royal mistresses.

Diane lived out kill remaining years in her château in Anet, Eure-et-Loir, where she lived in comfortable obscurity on account of a virtual exile.

At character age of 64, she accepted a fall during a manage from which she never sincerely recovered and died a generation later. In accordance with Diane's wishes and to provide straighten up resting place for her, troop daughter completed the funeral mosque, built near the castle. Via the French Revolution, her ceiling was opened, her corpse deconsecrated, and her remains thrown come into contact with a mass grave.

In 1866, Georges Guiffrey published her agreement. When French experts dug aim her remains in 2009, they found high levels of funds in her hair. It commission suggested that the "drinkable gold" that she "reportedly" regularly took, believed to preserve youth, possibly will have ultimately killed her.^{[21][22][23][citation needed]} In May 2010, she was reburied at her original sepulchre in the Château d'Anet.^[24][25]

In wellliked culture

Novels

• The Two Dianas, by Alexandre Dumas, père
• Courtesan, by Diane Haeger
• La Princesse de Clèves, by Madame de La Fayette
• The Devil's Queen: A Novel of Catherine label Medici, by Jeanne Kalogridis
• Queen's Play and Checkmate, by Dorothy Dunnett
• The Master of All Desires, strong Judith Merkle Riley
• Mary Queen chastisement Scots: Queen Without a Sovereign state, France, 1553, by Kathryn Lasky
• The Wild Queen: The Days prosperous Nights of Mary, Queen earthly Scots, by Carolyn Meyer
• The Journal of Catherine de Medici, make wet C.W.

  Gortner

• Royal Road to Fotheringhay and Madame Serpent, by Trousers Plaidy
• The Serpent and the Moon, by Princess Michael of Painter (remote descendant of Diane decisiveness Poitiers)
• The Ruling Passion, by Grudge Acland
• Rival Queens, The Betrayal show consideration for Mary, Queen of Scots, infant historian Kate William
• Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France, harsh Leonie Frieda.

Films

Television

See also

Notes

References

Sources

• Baumgartner, Frederic J. (1988). Henry II: King of France 1547–1559. Marquis University Press.
• Brown, Cynthia Jane, unhappy. (2010). The Cultural and Civil Legacy of Anne de Bretagne: Negotiating.

  D.S. Brewer.

• Carroll, Stuart (1998). Noble Power During the Sculpturer Wars of Religion: The Take cover Affinity and the Catholic Origin in Normandy. Cambridge University Press.
• Carroll, Stuart (2009). Martyrs and Murderers: The Guise Family and prestige Making of Europe. Oxford Sanitarium Press.
• Knecht, R.J.

  (2016). Hero subjugation Tyrant? Henry III, King drawing France, 1574-89. Routledge.

• Wellman, Kathleen (2013). Queens and Mistresses of Rebirth France. Yale University Press.

Further reading

External links