FRANÇOIS DE LORRAINE
François de Lorraine, Duke of Guise, painting by François Clouet
Second Duke of Guise, b. at the Château de Bar, 17 Feb., 1519, of Claude de Guise and Antoinette de Bourbon; d, 24 Feb, 1563. He was the warrior of the family, el gran capitan de Guysa, as the Spanish called him. A wound which he received at the siege of Boulogne (1545), won for him the surname Balafré (the Scarred). His defense of Metz against Charles V (1552) crowned his reputation. After a siege of two months the emperor was obliged to retire with a loss of 30,000 men. François de Lorraine fought valiantly at the battle of Renty (1554). The Truce of Vaucelles, signed in 1556 for a period of six years, followed by the abdication of Charles V, seemed about to end his military career.
The Siege of Calais
The dukes of Guise, however, as descendants of the House of Anjou, had certain pretensions to the Kingdom of Naples, and it was doubtless with the secret intention of defending these claims that François de Lorraine furthered an alliance between Henry II and Pope Paul IV which was menaced by Philip II. In consequence of this alliance François de Guise entered Milanese territory (Jan., 1557), marched thence through Italy, and although neither the petty princes nor the pope gave him the assistance he expected, he took the little Neapolitan town of Campli (17 April, 1557), and on 24 April laid siege to Civitella. At the end of twenty-two days, being threatened at the same time by epidemic and the Duke of Alva, he fell back upon Rome, where he reorganized his army, and was preparing to return southward, when Henry II, after the victory of the Spaniards over the Constable de Montmorency at Saint-Quentin (23 Aug., 1557), summoned him to “restore France.”
