Philibert de La Guiche information

Philibert de La Guiche
seigneur de Chaumont
La Guiche's coat of arms
Born	c. 1544
Died	c. 1607
Noble family	Maison de La Guiche
Father	Gabriel de La Guiche

Philibert de La Guiche, seigneur de Chaumont (c. 1544 -c. 1607)^[1] was a French noble, courtier, governor and military officer during the French Wars of Religion. The son of a prominent noble in Mâcon, La Guiche inherited his father's position in the city in 1555. He served under the command of the duke of Montmorency during the early wars of religion, during which he was awarded the highest chivalric honour, that of l'Ordre de Saint-Michel. Keeping his governorships out of involvement in the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre, he was with the brother of the king the duke of Anjou for the prosecution of the siege of La Rochelle. He made an impression upon the prince and was appointed to a position in his household, and was granted the governorship of the Bourbonnais. Upon Anjou's election as king of the Commonwealth he travelled to the country with the now king, serving in his household. Anjou soon returned to France to assume the kingship, styling himself Henri III. The new king was confronted with a civil war, which La Guiche served in, first as commander of an ordinance company, and then as maître de camp for the light horse, an appointment designed to erode the influence over the cavalry of the duke of Guise.

During the sixth civil war that followed the short peace, he was captured by Protestant forces near Brouage and held until the end of the war. In 1578 he resigned his office of maître de camp to Saint-Mégrin and was compensated with the more senior office of Grand Maître de l'Artillerie, a post he would hold until 1596. He accompanied the king's brother Alençon on his campaign into Nederland in 1581. Through the 1580s he bonded himself closely to one of the king's paramount favourites the duke of Épernon, and became among his closest companions, assisting him in his return to court in 1586. La Guiche remained loyal to the king after the December 1588 assassination of the duke of Guise and was therefore entrusted in Henri's carefully chosen royal council in 1589. After the Assassination of Henri III in turn, he supported the royalist cause, for which he was rewarded with the governorship of the Lyonnais in September 1595, at first intended on a temporary basis. He died in 1607, still in possession of this office.