Louise de Coligny

Louise de Coligny
Princess consort of Orange
Tenure	24 April 1583 - 10 July 1584
Born	(1555-09-23)23 September 1555 Châtillon-sur-Loing
Died	9 November 1620(1620-11-09) (aged 65) Fontainebleau
Spouse	Charles de Teligny William I, Prince of Orange
Issue	Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange
House	Coligny (by birth) Orange-Nassau (by marriage)
Father	Gaspard II de Coligny
Mother	Charlotte de Laval

Louise de Coligny (23 September 1555 – 9 November 1620) was the daughter of Gaspard II de Coligny and Charlotte de Laval and the fourth and last spouse of William the Silent.

Biography

Louise was born at Châtillon-sur-Loing. Her parents saw to it that she received a humanist education. When she was seventeen, she married Charles de Teligny. Both he and her father were murdered at the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. Like her murdered father, she was a French Huguenot and after the massacre, she spent ten years in the Swiss Confederacy.

She then married William the Silent on 24 April 1583. 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. Gérard murdered William in 1584.

After her husband was murdered, she raised both her son and his six daughters from his third marriage to Charlotte of Bourbon. During her life she remained an advocate for Protestantism and she corresponded with many important figures of that time, like Elizabeth I of England, Henry IV of France, Marie de' Medici and Philippe de Mornay, as well as with her many stepchildren. She died at Fontainebleau.

References

• Women's letters across Europe, 1400-1700: form and persuasion. Ashgate Published Unlimited. 2005. {{cite book}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors= (help)
• "Willem van Oranje: Biografie" last accessed April 10, 2007