[6] At the papal consistory of 7 November 1533 (at 16 and while still a layman)[7] Odet de Coligny was created cardinal deacon, receiving the red hat and the titular church of Santi Sergio e Bacco three days later.

[9] On 29 April 1534 Cardinal de Coligny's nomination to the metropolitan see of Toulouse by King Francis I was approved in Consistory by Pope Clement VII,[10] despite his never having been ordained a priest.

At the age of seventeen, he participated in the papal conclave of 11–12 October 1534, in which Cardinal Alessandro Farnese was elected Pope Paul III.

[16] King Francis I died on 31 March 1547, and it was reported a week later by Sir Edward Wotton, the English Ambassador, that Cardinal Odet and his brother François were among the chief favorites of Henri II.

[17] As a Peer of France, Cardinal de Châtillon attended the funeral of Francis I in Saint Denis, and the Coronation of Henri II at Rheims on 26 July.

[21] The Cardinal de Châtillon, who had apostasized in favor of Calvinism, was deprived of all of his benefices by Pope Pius IV on 31 March 1563.

In 1552, after the Cardinal had obtained for the latter a ten-year monopoly on book-printing,[26] Rabelais dedicated his Quart Livre of Pantagruel to Odet in gratitude.

[29] In 1554 the Cardinal de Châtillon ordered published the Synodial Constitutions of the Diocese of Beauvais, containing some twenty-one chapters on the duties and conduct of the clergy, including the requirement that they keep their beards shaved (la barbe rase) and their hair cut short.

Four years later, Pius named him grand inquisitor of France, though the French Parliament's opposition to the Inquisition prevented him from taking up the post.

[2] Sometime after 1560 Cardinal Odet also became abbot of Grandchamps, of the Cistercian abbey of Nôtre Dame de Quincy in the diocese of Langres,[31] and (from 1555, at least) of Vézelay.

[35] On 22 May 1558 Giovanni Michiel, the Venetian Ambassador to the French Court, which was at Monceau at the time, wrote that François d'Andelot, General of the Infantry and Cardinal de Châtillon's brother, had been arrested at Court on a charge of having participated in a meeting and procession of Protestants in the meadows beyond the Faubourg St. Germain, which was repeated day after day during the week.

His wife was allowed to join him, but the King, who was very angry, also sent along several of his gentlemen to talk to him, as well as several professors from the Sorbonne, but he remained obstinate in his admitted affiliation.

His brother, Cardinal de Châtillon, was also under suspicion of holding the same opinions, "and should they choose to go investigating matters farther," wrote the Ambassador, "I understand that many others of much higher grade will be discovered.

[42] When the Constable de Montmorency himself wrote to the Pope in favor of the Cardinal, a second summons was issued, on 17 November, which was published in Beauvais on 10 January 1563.

He took up residence at Shene, from which he frequently wrote letters to Sir William Cecil, the Secretary of State, on behalf of Protestants, whether soldiers, merchants or refugees from the Civil War which was going on in France.

In November 1568, Châtillon obtained permission to return to France, intending to sail to Rochelle, which was in Protestant hands and where he was expected, but bad winds at Portsmouth prevented his crossing.

[51] In 1568, his former abbacy of Ferrières was besieged by the troops of Louis de Condé, friend of the Coligny family and fellow Protestant.

On 19 and 23 May 1569, the Parliament of Paris deprived the Cardinal de Châtillon of all of his honours, offices, and estates, his dignity as Peer of the Realm, and the income of all of his benefices.

[53] On November 10 he was still prevented from crossing, a fire having broken out in the ship he was to use, and he decided therefore to change his plans and to go to Picardy instead of La Rochelle, though at that point he was impeded by the very bad health of his wife.

On 6 December the Cardinal left London for Canterbury, though in mid-January 1571 he was back at the English Court and discussions on the Anjou marriage continued.

The Cardinal's wife gave testimony that she believed that he had been given slow poison, and that the proof was in his perforated stomach, discovered at the autopsy.

[55] The Cardinal was therefore buried in a temporary and very plain tomb covered in hessian and plaster in the Trinity Chapel in the east end of Canterbury Cathedral.