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Claude, Duke of Guise

Coat of arms of the Duke of Guise

Claude of Lorraine (October 20, 1496, Château de Condé-sur-Moselle, – April 12, 1550, Château de Joinville) was the first Duke of Guise, from 1528 to his death.

He was the second son of René II, Duke of Lorraine and was educated at the French court of Francis I. At seventeen, Claude made an alliance to the royal house of France by a marriage with Antoinette de Bourbon (1493–1583), daughter of Francis, Count of Vendôme.

Claude distinguished himself at the battle of Marignano (1515), and was long in recovering from the twenty-two wounds he received in the battle. In 1521 he fought at Fuenterrabia, and Louise of Savoy ascribed the capture of the place to his efforts. In 1523 he became governor of Champagne and Burgundy, after defeating at Neufchâteau the imperial troops who had invaded this 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 in 1528, Claude was made Duke of Guise 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 of Condé and Conti.

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 Luxembourg campaign in 1542, but for some years before his death he effaced himself before the growing fortunes of his sons.

• Mary of Guise (1515–1560), married to king James V of Scotland
• Francis, Duke of Guise (1519–1563)
• Louise of Guise (January 10, 1520, Bar-le-Duc – October 18, 1542), married Charles I, Duke of Arschot on February 20, 1541
• Renée of Guise (September 2, 1522 – April 3, 1602), Abbess of St. Pierre, Reims
• Charles, Duke of Chevreuse, Archbishop of Reims and Cardinal of Guise (1524–1574)
• Claude, Duke of Aumale (1526–1573)
• Louis I, Cardinal of Guise (1527–1578)
• Philip (September 3, 1529, Joinville – September 24, 1529, Joinville)
• Peter (b. April 3, 1530, Joinville), d. young
• Antoinette of Guise (August 31, 1531, Joinville – March 6, 1561, Joinville), Abbess of Faremoutier
• Francis, Grand Prior of the Order of Malta (April 18, 1534, Joinville – March 6, 1563)
• René, Marquis of Elbeuf (1536–1566)

• Duke of Lorraine
• Dukes of Lorraine family tree
• Dukes of Guise family tree

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.