Prince Charles Henry de Lorraine-Vaudemont
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Prince Charles Henry de Lorraine-Vaudemont (Brussels, April 17, 1649 - Nancy, January 14, 1723), prince de Vaudémont , prince de Commercy, was the son of Charles IV, Duke of Lorraine and Béatrix de Cusance.
Charles Henry was the third child and only surviving son from the second marriage of Charles IV, Duke of Lorraine. There had been no children from the first marriage.
This second marriage was annuled by the church, because the separation between the Duke and his first wife Nicole de Lorraine , had never been accepted by Rome. For this, Charles Henry had no rights to the title of Duke, and the title went his uncle and cousin.
In 1669 he married his cousin Anne-Elisabeth de Lorraine-Elbeuf, and had only one son:
- Charles Thomas (1670-1704), prince of Vaudemont and killed in battle near Ostiglia.
An exile like his father , he served in the Spanish-Habsburg army against France. He fought many battles and in 1675 he was made a knight in the Order of the Golden Fleece. He served in the War of the Grand Alliance in Flanders under William III of England.
In 1698 he was appointed Governor of Milan. In 1700 the last Spanish-Habsburg king, Charles II, died and was replaced by the Frenchman Philip V. This triggered the War of Spanish Succession in which the territory around Milan was one of the mayor battlefields. Prince Charles Henry first accepted the new king as sovereign of Lombardy, but he wasn't trusted. Saint Simon wrote very negatively about him, having him pass on military information to the enemy. It is a fact that his son was one of the Austrian army commanders.
After the Battle of Turin the French and Spanish had to withdraw from Italy and Prince Charles Henry signed a treaty with Eugene of Savoy which put Lombardy under Austrian rule.
In 1708, the new Duke of Lorraine Leopold I gave Charles Henry the principality of Commercy. He engaged the famous architect Germain Boffrand to build the beautiful castle of Commercy.
He died at the age of 74 without children.
