[1] A small island in the Bidassoa, called La Isla de los Faisanes,
or l'Isle de la Conference, is celebrated as the place where the
marriage of the duke of Guienne was arranged between Louis XI. and
Henry IV. in 1463, where Francis I., the prisoner of Charles V., was
exchanged for his two sons in 1526, and where in 1659 "the Peace of
the Pyrenees" was concluded between D. Luis de Haro and Cardinal
Mazarin.
GUIRAUD, ERNEST (1837-1892), French composer, was born at New Orleans on
the 26th of June 1837. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, where he
won the _grand prix de Rome_. His father had gained the same distinction
many years previously, this being the only instance of both father and
son obtaining this prize. Ernest Guiraud composed the following operas:
_Sylvie_ (1864); _Le Kobold_ (1870), _Madame Turlupin_ (1872),
_Piccolino_ (1876), _Galante Aventure_ (1882), and also the ballet
_Gretna Green_, given at the Opera in 1873. His opera _Fredegonde_ was
left in an unfinished condition and was completed by Camille
Saint-Saens. Guiraud, who was a fellow-student and intimate friend of
Georges Bizet, was for some years professor of composition at the
Conservatoire. He was the author of an excellent treatise on
instrumentation. He died in Paris on the 6th of May 1892.
GUISBOROUGH, or GUISBROUGH, a market town in the Cleveland parliamentary
division of the North Riding of Yorkshire, England, 10 m. E.S.E. of
Middlesbrough by a branch of the North-Eastern railway. Pop. of urban
district (1901), 5645. It is well situated in a narrow, fertile valley
at the N. foot of the Cleveland Hills. The church of St Nicholas is
Perpendicular, greatly restored. Other buildings are the town hall, and
the modern buildings of the grammar school founded in 1561. Ruins of an
Augustinian priory, founded in 1129, are beautifully situated near the
eastern extremity of the town. The church contains some fine Decorated
work, and the chapter house and parts of the conventual buildings may be
traced. Considerable fragments of Norman and transitional work remain.
Among the historic personages who were buried within its walls was
Robert Bruce, lord of Annandale, the competitor for the throne of
Scotland with John Baliol, and the grandfather of King Robert the Bruce.
About 1 m. S.E. of the town there is a sulphurous spring discovered in
1822. The district neighbouring to Guisborough is rich in iron-stone.
Its working forms the chief industry of the town, and there are also
tanneries and breweries.
GUISE, a town of northern France, in the department of Aisne, on the
Oise, 31 m. N. of Laon by rail. Pop. (1906), 7562. The town was formerly
the capital of the district of Thierache and afterwards of a countship
(see below). There is a chateau dating in part from the middle of the
16th century. Camille Desmoulins was in 1762 born in the town, which has
erected a statue to him. The chief industry is the manufacture of iron
stoves and heating apparatus, carried on on the co-operative system in
works founded by J. B. A. Godin, who built for his workpeople the huge
buildings known as the _familistere_, in front of which stands his
statue. A board of trade-arbitration is among the public institutions.
GUISE, HOUSE OF, a cadet branch of the house of Lorraine (q.v.). Rene
II., duke of Lorraine (d. 1508), united the two branches of the house of
Lorraine. From his paternal grandmother, Marie d'Harcourt, Rene
inherited the countships of Aumale, Mayenne, Elbeuf, Lillebonne, Brionne
and other French fiefs, in addition to the honours of the elder branch,
which included the countship of Guise, the dowry of Marie of Blois on
her marriage in 1333 with Rudolph or Raoul of Lorraine. Rene's eldest
surviving son by his marriage with Philippa, daughter of Adolphus of
Egmont, duke of Gelderland, was Anthony, who succeeded his father as
duke of Lorraine (d. 1544), while the second, Claude, count and
afterwards duke of Guise, received the French fiefs. The Guises, though
naturalized in France, continued to interest themselves in the fortunes
of Lorraine, and their enemies were always ready to designate them as
foreigners. The partition between the brothers Anthony and Claude was
ratified by a further agreement in 1530, reserving the lapsed honours of
the kingdoms of Jerusalem, Sicily, Aragon, the duchy of Anjou and the
countships of Provence and Maine to the duke of Lorraine. Of the other
sons of Rene II., John (1498-1550) became the first cardinal of
Lorraine, while Ferri, Louis and Francis fell fighting in the French
armies at Marignano (1515), Naples (1528) and Pavia (1525) respectively.
CLAUDE OF LORRAINE, count and afterwards 1st duke of Guise (1496-1550),
was born on the 20th of October 1496. He was educated at the French
court, and at seventeen allied himself to the royal house of France by a
marriage with Antoinette de Bourbon (1493-1583) daughter of Francois,
Count of Vendome. Guise distinguished himself at Marignano (1515), and
was long in recovering from the twenty-two wounds he received in the
battle; in 1521 he fought at Fuenterrabia, when Louise of Savoy ascribed
the capture of the place to his efforts; in 1522 he defended northern
France, and forced the English to raise the siege of Hesdin; and in 1523
he obtained the government of Champagne and Burgundy, defeating at
Neufchateau the imperial troops who had invaded his province. In 1525
he destroyed the Anabaptist peasant army, which was overrunning
Lorraine, at Lupstein, near Saverne (Zabern). On the return of Francis
I. from captivity, Guise was erected into a duchy in the peerage of
France, though up to this time only princes of the royal house had held
the title of duke and peer of France. The Guises, as cadets of the
sovereign house of Lorraine and descendants of the house of Anjou,
claimed precedence of the Bourbon princes. Their pretensions and
ambitions inspired distrust in Francis I., although he rewarded Guise's
services by substantial gifts in land and money. The duke distinguished
himself in the Luxemburg campaign in 1542, but for some years before his
death he effaced himself before the growing fortunes of his sons. He
died on the 12th of April 1550.
He had been supported in all his undertakings and intrigues by his
brother JOHN, cardinal of Lorraine (1498-1550), who had been made
coadjutor of Metz at the age of three. The cardinal was archbishop of
Reims, Lyons and Narbonne, bishop of Metz, Toul, Verdun, Therouanne,
Lucon, Albi, Valence, Nantes and Agen, and before he died had squandered
most of the wealth which he had derived from these and other benefices.
Part of his ecclesiastical preferments he gave up in favour of his
nephews. He became a member of the royal council in 1530, and in 1536
was entrusted with an embassy to Charles V. Although a complaisant
helper in Francis I.'s pleasures, he was disgraced in 1542, and retired
to Rome. He died at Nogent-sur-Yonne on the 18th of May 1550. He was
extremely dissolute, but as an open-handed patron of art and learning,
as the protector and friend of Erasmus, Marot and Rabelais he did
something to counter-balance the general unpopularity of his calculating
and avaricious brother.
Claude of Guise had twelve children, among them Francis, 2nd duke of
Guise; Charles, 2nd cardinal of Lorraine (1524-1574), who became
archbishop of Reims in 1538 and cardinal in 1547; Claude, marquis of
Mayenne, duke of Aumale (1526-1573), governor of Burgundy, who married
Louise de Breze, daughter of Diane de Poitiers, thus securing a
powerful ally for the family; Louis (1527-1578), bishop of Troyes,
archbishop of Sens and cardinal of Guise; Rene, marquis of Elbeuf
(1536-1566), from whom descended the families of Harcourt, Armagnac,
Marsan and Lillebonne; Mary of Lorraine (q.v.), generally known as
Mary of Guise, who after the death of her second husband, James V. of
Scotland, acted as regent of Scotland for her daughter Mary, queen of
Scots; and Francis (1534-1563), grand prior of the order of the
Knights of Malta. The solidarity of this family, all the members of
which through three generations cheerfully submitted to the authority
of the head of the house, made it a formidable factor in French
politics.
FRANCIS OF LORRAINE, 2nd duke of Guise (1519-1563), "le grand Guise,"
was born at Bar on the 17th of February 1519. As count of Aumale he
served in the French army, and was nearly killed at the siege of
Boulogne in 1545 by a wound which brought him the name of "Balafre."
Aumale was made (1547) a peerage-duchy in his favour, and on the
accession of Henry II. the young duke, who had paid assiduous court to
Diane de Poitiers, shared the chief honours of the kingdom with the
constable Anne de Montmorency. Both cherished ambitions for their
families, but the Guises were more unscrupulous in subordinating the
interests of France to their own. Montmorency's brutal manners, however,
made enemies where Guise's grace and courtesy won him friends. Guise was
a suitor for the hand of Jeanne d'Albret, princess of Navarre, who
refused, however, to become a sister-in-law of a daughter of Diane de
Poitiers and remained one of the most dangerous and persistent enemies
of the Guises. He married in December 1548 Anne of Este, daughter of
Ercole II., duke of Ferrara, and through her mother Renee, a
granddaughter of Louis XII. of France. In the same year he had put down
a peasant rising in Saintonge with a humanity that compared very
favourably with the cruelty shown by Montmorency to the town of
Bordeaux. He made preparations in Lorraine for the king's German
campaign of 1551-52. He was already governor of Dauphine, and now became
grand chamberlain, prince of Joinville, and hereditary seneschal of
Champagne, with large additions to his already considerable revenues. He
was charged with the defence of Metz, which Henry II. had entered in
1551. He reached the city in August 1552, and rapidly gave proof of his
great powers as a soldier and organizer by the skill with which the
place, badly fortified and unprovided with artillery, was put in a state
of defence. Metz was invested by the duke of Alva in October with an
army of 60,000 men, and the emperor joined his forces in November. An
army of brigands commanded by Albert of Brandenburg had also to be
reckoned with. Charles was obliged to raise the siege on the 2nd of
January 1553, having lost, it is said, 30,000 men before the walls.
Guise used his victory with rare moderation and humanity, providing
medical care for the sick and wounded left behind in the besiegers'
camp. The subsequent operations were paralysed by the king's suspicion
and carelessness, and the constable's inactivity, and a year later Guise
was removed from the command. He followed the constable's army as a
volunteer, and routed the army of Charles V. at the siege of Renty on
the 12th of August 1554. Montmorency's inaction rendered the victory
fruitless, and a bitter controversy followed between Guise and the
constable's nephew Coligny, admiral of France, which widened a breach
already existing.
The conclusion of a six years' truce at Vaucelles (1556) disappointed
Guise's ambitions, and he was the main mover in the breach of the treaty
in 1558, when he was sent at the head of a French army to Italy to the
assistance of Pope Paul IV. against Spain. Guise, who perhaps had in
view the restoration to his family of the Angevin dominion of Naples and
Sicily, crossed the Alps early in 1557 and after a month's delay in
Rome, where he failed to receive the promised support, marched on the
kingdom of Naples, then occupied by the Spanish troops under Alva. He
seized and sacked Campli (April 17th), but was compelled to raise the
siege of Civitella. Meanwhile the pope had veered round to a Spanish
alliance, and Guise, seeing that no honour was to be gained in the
campaign, wisely spared his troops, so that his army was almost intact
when, in August, he was hastily summoned home to repel the Spanish army
which had invaded France from the north, and had taken St Quentin. On
reaching Paris in October Guise was made lieutenant-general of the
kingdom, and proceeded to prepare for the siege of Calais. The town was
taken, after six days' fighting, on the 6th of January 1558, and this
success was followed up by the capture of Guines, Thionville and Arlon,
when the war was ended by the treaty of Cateau Cambresis (1559).
Although his brother, the cardinal of Lorraine, was one of the
negotiators, this peace was concluded against the wishes of Guise, and
was regarded as a triumph of the constable's party. The Guises were
provided with a weapon against Montmorency by the bishop of Arras
(afterwards Cardinal Granvella), who gave to the cardinal of Lorraine at
an interview at Peronne in 1558 an intercepted letter proving the
Huguenot leanings of the constable's nephews.
On the accession in 1559 of Francis II., their nephew by marriage with
Mary Stuart, the royal authority was practically delegated to Guise and
the cardinal, who found themselves beyond rivalry for the time being.
They had, however, to cope with a new and dangerous force in Catherine
de' Medici, who was now for the first time free to use her political
ability. The incapacity, suspicion and cruelty of the cardinal, who
controlled the internal administration, roused the smaller nobility
against the Lorraine princes. A conspiracy to overturn their government
was formed at Nantes, with a needy Perigord nobleman named La Renaudie
as its nominal head, though the agitation had in the first instance been
fostered by the agents of Louis I., prince of Conde. The Guises were
warned of the conspiracy while the court was at Blois, and for greater
security removed the king to Amboise. La Renaudie, nothing daunted,
merely postponed his plans; and the conspirators assembled in small
parties in the woods round Amboise. They had, however, been again
betrayed and many of them were surrounded and taken before the _coup_
could be delivered; one party, which had seized the chateau of Noizay,
surrendered on a promise of amnesty given "on his faith as a prince" by
James of Savoy, duke of Nemours, a promise which, in spite of the duke's
protest, was disregarded. On the 19th of March 1560, La Renaudie and
the rest of the conspirators openly attacked the chateau of Amboise.
They were repelled; their leader was killed; and a large number were
taken prisoners. The merciless vengeance of the Guises was the measure
of their previous fears. For a whole week the torturings, quarterings
and hangings went on, the bodies being cast into the Loire, the young
king and queen witnessing the bloody spectacle day by day from a balcony
of the chateau.
The cruel repression of this "conspiracy of Amboise" inspired bitter
hatred of the Guises, since they were avenging a rising rather against
their own than the royal authority. They now entrenched themselves with
the king at Orleans, and the Bourbon princes, Anthony, king of Navarre,
and his brother Conde, were summoned to court. The Guises convened a
special commission to try Conde, who was condemned to death; but the
affair was postponed by the chancellor, and the death of Francis II. in
December saved Conde. Guise then made common cause with his old rival
Montmorency and with the Marshal de Saint Andre against Catherine, the
Bourbons and Coligny. This alliance, constituted on the 6th of April
1561, and known as the triumvirate, aimed at the annulment of the
concessions made by Catherine to the Huguenots. The cardinal of Lorraine
fomented the discord which appeared between the clergy of the two
religions when they met at the colloquy of Poissy in 1561, but in spite
of the extreme Catholic views he there professed, he was at the time in
communication with the Lutheran princes of Germany, and in February 1562
met the duke of Wurttemberg at Zabern to discuss the possibility of a
religious compromise.
The signal for civil war was given by an attack of Guise's escort on a
Huguenot congregation at Vassy (1st of March 1562). Although Guise did
not initiate the massacre, and although, when he learned what was going
on, he even tried to restrain his soldiers, he did not disavow their
action. When Catherine de' Medici forbade his entry into Paris, he
accepted the challenge, and on the 16th of March he entered the city,
where he was a popular hero, at the head of 2000 armed nobles. The
provost of the merchants offered to put 20,000 men and two million
livres at his disposal. In September he joined Montmorency in besieging
Rouen, which was sacked as if it had been a foreign city, in spite of
Guise's efforts to save it from the worst horrors. At the battle of
Dreux (19th of December 1562) he commanded a reserve army, with which he
saved Montmorency's forces from destruction and inflicted a crushing
defeat on the Huguenots. The prince of Conde was his prisoner, while the
capture of Montmorency by the Huguenots and the assassination of the
Marshal de Saint-Andre after the battle left Guise the undisputed head
of the Catholic party. He was appointed lieutenant-general of the
kingdom, and on the 5th of February 1563 he appeared with his army
before Orleans. On the 19th, however, he was shot by the Huguenot Jean
Poltrot de Mere as he was returning to his quarters, and died on the
24th of the effects of the wound. Guise's splendid presence, his
generosity and humanity and his almost unvarying success on the
battlefield made him the idol of his soldiers. He attended personally to
the minutest details, and Monluc complains that he even wrote out his
own orders. The mistakes and cruelties associated with his name were
partly due to the evil counsels of his brother Charles, the cardinal,
whose cowardice and insincerity were the scorn of his contemporaries.
The negotiations of the Guises with Spain dated from the interview with
Granvella at Peronne, in 1558, and after the death of his brother the
cardinal of Lorraine was constantly in communication with the Spanish
court, offering, in the event of the failure of direct heirs to the
Valois kings, to deliver up the frontier fortresses and to acknowledge
Philip II. as king of France. His death in 1574 temporarily weakened the
extreme Catholic party.
Of the children of Francis "le Balafre" five survived him: Henry, 3rd
duke of Guise; Charles, duke of Mayenne (1554-1611) (q.v.), who
consolidated the League; Catherine (1552-1596), who married Louis of
Bourbon, duke of Montpensier, and encouraged the fanaticism of the
Parisian leaguers; Louis, second cardinal of Guise, afterwards of
Lorraine (1555-1588), who was assassinated with his brother Henry; and
Francis (1558-1573).
HENRY OF LORRAINE, 3rd duke of Guise (1550-1588), born on the 31st of
December 1550, was thirteen years old at the time of his father's death,
and grew up under the domination of a passionate desire for revenge.
Catherine de' Medici refused to take steps against Coligny, who was
formally accused by the duchess of Guise and her brothers-in-law of
having incited the murder. In 1566 she insisted on a formal
reconciliation at Moulins between the Guises and Coligny, at which,
however, none of the sons of the murdered man was present. Henry and his
brothers were, however, compelled in 1572 to sign an ambiguous assent to
this agreement. Guise's widow married James of Savoy, duke of Nemours,
and the young duke at sixteen went to fight against the Turks in
Hungary. On the fresh outbreak of civil war in 1567 he returned to
France and served under his uncle Aumale. In the autumn of 1568 he
received a considerable command, and speedily came into rivalry with
Henry of Valois, duke of Anjou. He had not inherited his father's
generalship, and his rashness and headstrong valour more than once
brought disaster on his troops, but the showy quality of his fighting
brought him great popularity in the army. In the defence of Poitiers in
1569 with his brother, the duke of Mayenne, he showed more solid
abilities as a soldier. On the conclusion of peace in 1570 he returned
to court, where he made no secret of his attachment to Margaret of
Valois. His pretensions were violently resented by her brothers, who
threatened his life, and he saved himself by a precipitate marriage with
Catherine of Cleves (daughter of Francis of Cleves, duke of Nevers, and
Margaret of Bourbon), the widow of a Huguenot nobleman, Antoine de Crog,
prince of Porcien. Presently he ended his disgrace by an apparent
reconciliation with Henry of Valois and an alliance with Catherine de'
Medici. He was an accomplice in the first attack on Coligny's life, and
when permission for the massacre of Saint Bartholomew had been extorted
from Charles IX. he roused Paris against the Huguenots, and satisfied
his personal vengeance by superintending the murder of Coligny. He was
now the acknowledged chief of the Catholic party, and the power of his
family was further increased by the marriage (1575) of Henry III. with
Louise of Vaudemont, who belonged to the elder branch of the house of
Lorraine. In a fight at Dormans (10th of October 1575), the only
Catholic victory in a disastrous campaign, Guise received a face wound
which won for him his father's name of Balafre and helped to secure the
passionate attachment of the Parisians. He refused to acquiesce in the
treaty of Beaulieu (5th of May 1576), and with the support of the
Jesuits proceeded to form a "holy league" for the defence of the Roman
Catholic Church. The terms of enrolment enjoined offensive action
against all who refused to join. This association had been preceded by
various provincial leagues among the Catholics, notably one at Peronne.
Conde had been imposed on this town as governor by the terms of the
peace, and the local nobility banded together to resist him. This, like
the Holy League itself, was political as well as religious in its aims,
and was partly inspired by revolt against the royal authority. In the
direction of the League Guise was hampered by Philip of Spain, who
subsidized the movement, while he also had to submit to the dictation of
the Parisian democracy. Ulterior ambitions were freely ascribed to him.
It was asserted that papers seized from his envoy to Rome, Jean David,
revealed a definite design of substituting the Lorraines, who
represented themselves as the successors of Charlemagne, for the Valois;
but these papers were probably a Huguenot forgery. Henry III. eventually
placed himself at the head of the League, and resumed the war against
the Huguenots; but on the conclusion of peace (September 1577) he seized
the opportunity of disbanding the Catholic associations. The king's
jealousy of Guise increased with the duke's popularity, but he did not
venture on an open attack, nor did he dare to avenge the murder by
Guise's partisans of one of his personal favourites, Saint-Megrin, who
had been set on by the court to compromise the reputation of the duchess
of Guise.[1]
Meanwhile the duke had entered on an equivocal alliance with Don John of
Austria. He was also in constant correspondence with Mary of Lorraine,
and meditated a descent on Scotland in support of the Catholic cause.
But the great riches of the Guises were being rapidly dissipated, and in
1578 the duke became a pensioner of Philip II. When in 1584 the death of
the duke of Anjou made Henry of Navarre the next heir to the throne, the
prospect of a Huguenot dynasty roused the Catholics to forget their
differences, and led to the formation of a new league of the Catholic
nobles. At the end of the same year Guise and his brother, the duke of
Mayenne, with the assent of other Catholic nobles, signed a treaty at
Joinville with Philip II., fixing the succession to the crown on
Charles, cardinal of Bourbon, to the exclusion of the Protestant princes
of his house. In March 1585 the chiefs of the League issued the
Declaration of Peronne, exposing their grievances against the government
and announcing their intention to restore the dignity of religion by
force of arms. On the refusal of Henry III. to accept Spanish help
against his Huguenot subjects, war broke out. The chief cities of France
declared for the League, and Guise, who had recruited his forces in
Germany and Switzerland, took up his headquarters at Chalons, while
Mayenne occupied Dijon, and his relatives, the dukes of Elbeuf, Aumale
and Mercoeur,[2] roused Normandy and Brittany. Henry III. accepted, or
feigned to accept, the terms imposed by the Guises at Nemours (7th of
July 1585). The edicts in favour of the Huguenots were immediately
revoked. Guise added to his reputation as the Catholic champion by
defeating the German auxiliaries of the Huguenots at Vimory (October
1587) and Auneau (November 1587). The protestations of loyalty to Henry
III. which had marked the earlier manifestoes of the League were
modified. Obedience to the king was now stated to depend on his giving
proof of Catholic zeal and showing no favour to heresy. In April 1588
Guise arrived in Paris, where he put himself at the head of the Parisian
mob, and on the 12th of May, known as the Day of the Barricades, he
actually had the crown within his grasp. He refused to treat with
Catherine de' Medici, who was prepared to make peace at any cost, but
restrained the populace from revolution and permitted Henry to escape
from Paris. Henry came to terms with the League in May, and made Guise
lieutenant-general of the royal armies. The estates-general, which were
assembled at Blois, were devoted to the Guise interest, and alarmed the
king by giving voice to the political as well as the religious
aspirations of the League. Guise remained at the court of Blois after
receiving repeated warnings that Henry meditated treason. On the 25th of
December he was summoned to the king's chamber during a sitting of the
royal council, and was murdered by assassins carefully posted by Henry
III. himself. The cardinal of Lorraine was murdered in prison on the
next day. The history of the Guises thenceforward centres in the duke of
Mayenne (q.v.).
By his wife, Catherine of Cleves, the third duke had fourteen
children: among them Charles, 4th duke of Guise (1571-1640); Claude,
duke of Chevreuse (1578-1657), whose wife, Marie de Rohan, duchess of
Chevreuse, became famous for her intrigues; Louis (1585-1621), 3rd
cardinal of Guise, archbishop of Reims, remembered for his liaison
with Charlotte des Essarts, mistress of Henry IV.
CHARLES, 4th duke of Guise (1571-1640), was imprisoned for three years
after his father's death. He married Henriette Catherine de Joyeuse,
widow of the duke of Montpensier. His eldest son predeceased him, and he
was succeeded by his second son HENRY (1614-1664), who had been
archbishop of Reims, but renounced the ecclesiastical estate and became
5th duke. He made an attempt (1647) on the crown of Naples, and was a
prisoner in Spain from 1648 to 1652. A second expedition to Naples in
1654 was a fiasco. He was succeeded by his nephew, LOUIS JOSEPH
(1650-1671), as 6th duke. With his son, FRANCIS JOSEPH (1670-1675), the
line failed; and the title and estates passed to his great-aunt, Marie
of Lorraine, duchess of Guise (1615-1688), daughter of the 4th duke, and
with her the title became extinct. The title is now vested in the family
of the Bourbon-Orleans princes.