Louise de Coligny

Louise de Coligny ( born September 23, 1555 Châtillon -sur -Loing, † November 13, 1620 in Fontainebleau ) was by marriage to William I of Orange -Nassau from 1583 Princess of Orange-Nassau.

Life

Childhood

Louise was the eldest child of the French Admiral Gaspard II de Coligny and his wife, Charlotte de Laval (1530-1568), daughter of Count Guy XVI. de Laval -Montfort, was born. It was strictly Protestant cally educated humanist and as a subsidiary of the French Huguenot leader. After the early death of her mother, she was placed in the care of Jeanne d' Albret, Queen of Navarre. Here she was friend of the son of the queen, the future King Henry IV

Countess of Teligny

When Louise was seventeen years old, she married, on the advice of her father in 1571 the Count Charles de Teligny ( 1535-1572 ), a favorite of the French king Charles IX. Both he and her father were shortly afterwards murdered in the St. Bartholomew's Day on August 24, 1572 because they refused to convert to Catholicism. Louise had with her mother Jacqueline Entremonts first to Savoy and finally flee to Switzerland. Here they lived in Basel and Bern.

After the Edict of Beaulieu they could return to France in 1576 and lived on the estates of her late husband in Lierville. She appeared only once at court to recover the title and goods of her father.

Princess of Orange-Nassau

Louise married Prince William I of Orange -Nassau on April 21, 1583 in Antwerp as his fourth wife in 1584 and mother of Frederick Henry, William's fourth legitimate son and future Prince of Orange, who was to remain the only child of this marriage.

After the assassination of her husband in 1584, she had to watch, she pulled on both her son and his daughters from his third marriage and took care of their Protestant marriages. In order to establish contact with the French Huguenots, she had traveled with her step- daughters Elizabeth and Charlotte Flandrika Brabantina 1594 specifically to Paris. In particular, they also took care of the daughter of the latter, her granddaughter Charlotte de La Trémoille, later Countess of Derby.

Due to its excellent connections to Protestant families and their continuing friendship with Henry IV it played an important role in the political life of France and the Netherlands.

Louise lived until a year before her death in Delft. Then they went to the court of Marie de Medici at Palace of Fontainebleau, where she also died.

Throughout her life she remained a defender of Protestantism. She is buried in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft.