Louis II, Cardinal of Guise

Louis II de Lorraine, cardinal de Guise was a French prelate, Cardinal and politician during the latter French Wars of Religion. The third son of François de Lorraine, duke of Guise and Anne d'Este Louis was destined for a career in the church. His uncle Cardinal Lorraine resigned his offices of Archbishop of Reims to him in 1574, and the death of his other uncle Louis I de Lorraine, Cardinal de Guise passed his ecclesiastical empire on to him upon his death in 1578. At which time the king made him Cardinal. Cardinal Guise actively involved himself in the first Catholic League that rose up in opposition to the generous Peace of Monsieur which brought the fifth war of religion to a close in 1576. The league succeeded in resuming the civil war the next year and a harsher peace was concluded. Over the following years of peace, he would feud with Épernon, and receive Henri III's new honour when he was made a chevalier de l'Ordre du Saint-Esprit in 1578 among the first cohort. Finally reaching the ecclesiastical age at which he could assume his responsibilities as Archbishop of Reims in 1583 he entered the city in triumph and oversaw a council at which he pushed for the promulgation of the Tridentine Decrees. In 1584, Henri's brother Alençon died, and as the king had no children, the inheritance of the throne was due to default to Henri's distant cousin Navarre, a Protestant. This was intolerable to the Guise family, and Cardinal Guise, and they sought to revive the league of 1576, agreeing to establish a new league at a council in Nancy in September of that year. On 21 March 1585, the Guise and their allies issued the Péronne Manifesto which denounced the failure of the king to suppress Protestantism, the problems of succession and the king's choice of favourites. Several days earlier the duke of Guise had occupied Châlons-sur-Marne, formerly declaring war on the crown. Cardinal Guise and his brother marched on Reims and succeeded in gaining entry, assuming authority over the religious capital of the kingdom for the league. The war with the king would be brought to a conclusion by the Treaty of Nemours in July 1585, by which Henri agreed to a series of humiliating concessions, and promised to pursue a war against heresy. His pursuit of the war was half-hearted, and in 1586 Cardinal Guise met with his brothers at the Abbey of Ourscamp where they affirmed that even if the king made peace with the Protestant Navarre they would defy him and continue the fight regardless. He was assassinated along with his brother Henri de Lorraine, duke of Guise by King Henry III's bodyguards at Château de Blois on 24 December 1588.