Gaspard de Coligny, Seigneur de Châtillon (* 16 February 1519, † 24 August 1572) came to the French court as the son of one of the most distinguished families, where he quickly found a friend in François de Lorraine, Duke of Guise. Together they had a successful military career. In 1552 Henri II appointed Coligny Coligny as "Admiral of France", although it is unclear whether he ever went to sea himself. The end of the friendship with Guise came in 1554 after the Battle of Renty, in retrospect a rather insignificant confrontation with the Habsburg army. Both men claimed the victory.
François Clouet. Admiral Gaspard II. Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri. CC0
At the end of the 1550s, Coliny showed increased interest in Calvinism and finally converted. At the latest now, a conflict with Guise was inevitable. The duke was shot in ambush near Orléans in 1563 by a Huguenot named Jean de Poltrot. He made very contradictory statements under torture. One of them indicated that he had been commissioned by Coligny. The admiral strongly contradicted this and it could never be proven. The Duke of Guise probably succumbed a few days after the assassination not to the wound but to the art of the attending physicians. For his eldest son and successor Henri de Lorraine, Duke of Guise, however, it was clear that Coliny was his father’s murderer. In addition to the dynastic, power-political and religious components, the French Wars of Religion were thus enriched by a personal one.
Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, was the second Huguenot heir to the throne as paternal uncle of Henri de Navarre. Until his death at the Battle of Jarnac (1569), he was the leader of the Huguenots in the fight against the Catholics. Afterwards, neither Navarre nor his son Henri de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, took over this position, but Coligny.
After the Treaty of Saint Germain-en-Laye (1570), Coligny returned to court. In a very short time he gained a certain influence over Charles IX. He was a strong supporter of the marriage between Henri de Navarre and Marguerite de Valois. The day after the wedding celebrations ended, Coligny was shot in the open street from a Guise family home. The shooter was probably Charles de Louviers, Seigneur de Maurevert. It could never be clarified on whose behalf the assassination took place. The three most likely candidates are Guise, Caterina de' Medici or Philip II of Spain, although the involvement of the Queen Mother is now strongly doubted. It would have been very illogical, after all their diplomatic efforts for reconciliation, to suddenly destroy them now. Therefore, the Duke of Guise is most likely to be the author of the assassination. After all, there had been a feud between the families for years in which religion played only a subordinate role.1 In any case, the assassination is a strong indication that there was no Catholic conspiracy against the Huguenots that had been prepared long in advance. Whoever was responsible for the attack wanted Coligny dead, not all Huguenots. If there had already been plans for a widespread massacre at the time, the admiral’s murder would only have given his supporters unnecessary warning.2 Coligny, who had been wounded in both arms, was carried into his house. Charles IX sent his personal physician and later visited him himself, accompanied by Caterina de' Medici.
Charles Danowitz called Bême, a servant of the Duke of Guise, is said to have entered Coligny’s bedroom in the early hours of 24 August 1572 and murdered the admiral. Guise, who was standing in the courtyard of the house, wanted to make sure that Coligny was really dead, so the admiral’s body was thrown out of the window. Several slightly different stories of Coligny’s murder appear in contemporary pamphlets. It is indisputable that he was found in the bedroom and thrown out of the window. Pope Gregory XIII even had this episode painted as a fresco on the wall of the Sala Regia by Giorgio Vasari.
The Massacre at Paris
Coligny is among the wedding guests in [Scene 1]. In [Scene 3] he is shot by a soldier on behalf of Guise. The visit of Charles IX to the Admiral’s bedside described in [Scene 5] actually took place. However, the king came accompanied by his mother. Contrary to Marlowe’s account, Charles XI did not offer him a bodyguard of his own accord, but Coligny asked for one.3 In [Scene 6] it is Gonzague who murders the admiral. He may have accompanied Guise to Coligny’s house, but he certainly didn’t kill him. Presumably the "Admiral’s bedroom" was on the upper stage, because Coligny’s body is thrown down to Guise.
At the beginning of [Scene 11] two soldiers discuss what to do with the dead admiral’s body and then hang it on a gallows tree. In doing so, the two represent medical theories and a syllogistic method of the Middle Ages, which were questioned in the 16th century not only by Pierre de la Ramée.4 Coligny’s body was indeed decapitated, mutilated and hung by the feet from the Gibet de Montfaucon. This was almost a building made of sixteen stone pillars arranged in a square, ten to twelve metres high, connected with wooden beams on which the condemned were hanged.
