Louis de Gonzague, Duke of Nevers (Italian: Ludovico or Luigi di Gonzaga-Nevers; 18 September 1539 – 23 October 1595) was a soldier, governor and statesman during the French Wars of Religion.
He opposed any drive to war with Spain in 1572, and after the attempt on Admiral Coligny's life was a key member of the council that decided on the policy of elimination for the Protestant leadership.
In the fifth civil war his army shadowed that of the duke of Alençon brother of the new king Henri, not giving battle, but containing him until Catherine negotiated a settlement.
On the death of the king, he again flirted with the ligue before committing himself to Henri IV serving him in Champagne, and then in failed diplomatic negotiations with the Pope after his abjuration from Protestantism.
Henri decided to compete as was his habit, however his joust against Gabriel de Lorges, Count of Montgomery went awry, and he received a large shard of wood into his eye.
[17] At the start of the second war of religion, negotiations flew back and forth between the Prince of Condé and the crown as Catherine de Medici tried to persuade him to call off his rebellion.
[18] Condé, who had been besieging Paris, was dislodged after the battle of Saint Denis and began moving east, hoping to link up with an army of German reiters.
[20] In January the secondary armies of Nevers and Claude, Duke of Aumale would link up with the main royal body at Vitry-le-François, exhausted after the pursuit of the Protestant force.
[23] During the third war that followed in 1568, Nevers would receive a serious leg wound, which compromised his ability to lead a military life, pushing him more into the role of statesman going forward, though he would continue to hold commands.
[24] In 1571, with the Admiral de Coligny pushing hard for a war with Spain to 're-unite Catholic and Protestant behind the crown' Nevers found himself in virulent opposition on council to such a scheme.
His opposition came not only on grounds of principal, disliking the thought of declaring war on a Catholic monarch in favour of a Protestant adviser to the king, but also strategic, feeling that France would be fatally compromised when Spanish forces attacked from their Italian holdings.
Nevers' secretary, Blaise de Vigenère, a distinguished antiquarian and art historian, wrote that the house had a vault, built by Italian workmen, which was more grand than the one at the Baths of Caracalla.
The leading Catholics of the court reacted in disgust to this, with the Cardinal de Bourbon accosting his nephew asking him how he dared marry a Protestant, and without Papal dispensation.
[29] During the celebrations for the wedding of Navarre to the king's sister Marguerite de Valois, Coligny was non-fatally shot while walking home from the Louvre.
[30] The court was immediately plunged into crisis as the already tense capital became a powder keg, with a real prospect of civil war resuming, and Coligny's Protestant followers in the city threatening revenge on the killer.
[31] On 23 August, Catherine assembled a meeting of her close advisers, among them Nevers, Gondi and Tavannes, the group agreed that crisis could be averted with a targeted strike to eliminate the main Protestant leadership.
He was the princely exception among a retinue largely composed of secondary provincial nobility, mainly new men who Anjou had met on the siege lines of La Rochelle.
Eventually he turned to Nevers as his man for the job, a decision which was met with much laughter at court, due to the duke's war injuries that left him with a limp.
Alençon travelled north to Dreux where he laid out the manifesto of his rebellion against the crown, lambasting his brother for relying on Italian advisers like Nevers for his administration.
[55] The fifth war of religion was brought to a close with the generous Peace of Monsieur which was highly favourable to the Protestants, in the hopes of re-securing Alençon's loyalty to the crown.
Nevers did not however exert much of his energies against the specifics of the piece as they related to a town of his, Mézières being given as surety to Condé, alienating much of the area from him and sending it into the arms of the local Guise clients.
The Estates General of 1576, called as a term of the peace, and the vote of the council, forced Henri to follow Nevers' advice and re-open war.
[57] At this time, Nevers was heavily in debt, with creditors through the Parlements such as the Séguiers, but he was soon to be bailed out of his financial situation by his patron Catherine, ensuring in future his greater loyalty to the crown.
[61] While the army had achieved several successes on the Loire, it was unable to make much headway against the main Protestant centres, and the king came to terms with them in the harsher Treaty of Bergerac in September 1577.
The intended course of the sessions was derailed however, by the Cardinal de Bourbon who fell on his knees and begged the king to restore singular Catholic worship in the kingdom.
[74] To support him and his son as lieutenant-general of the region, Joachim de Dinteville was maintained, largely able to act as governor in his own right, due to the absence of the Gonzague from the province.
Nevers however stood alone in support of the proposal, arguing that if the king secured a victory against the Protestant mercenaries that it would disarm the ability of Guise to claim pre-eminence as a defender of Catholicism.
[76] The Estates General of 1588 required the presence of Guise, as such he abdicated his command of the army in Poitou to Nevers while he went to attend to the sessions, hoping they would support his ligueur proposals against the king.
Biron was killed in the initial attempt, and when reinforced by troops under Nevers, the town was captured, a heavy blow to the nearby ligueurs in Reims.
Nevers faced an uphill battle in his task, being accepted into Rome only due to his Mantuan nobility, and not as a representative of the 'Béarnais' the ligueur pejorative for Henri IV.