Louise de Coligny

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Louise de Coligny
Louise de Coligny

Louise de Coligny (Châtillon-sur-Loing, 23 September 1555 - Fontainebleau, 13 November 1620) was the daughter of Gaspard de Coligny and Charlotte de Laval and the fourth and last spouse of William the Silent.

[edit] Biography

When she was seventeen, she married Charles de Teligny. Both he and her father were murdered at the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. She then married William the Silent on April 12, 1583. Like her murdered father, she was a French Huguenot. She became the mother of Frederick Henry in 1584, William's fourth legitimate son and future prince of Orange. It is said that she warned her husband about Balthasar Gérard, because she thought him sinister.

After her husband was murdered, she raised both her son and his daughters from his third marriage to Charlotte of Bourbon. During her life she remained an advocate for protestantism.

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