Gabriel, comte de Montgomery, seigneur de Lorges (c. 1530 – June 26 1574) was a lieutenant in King Henry II of France's Scots Guards. He is remembered for mortally injuring Henry in a freak jousting accident and subsequently converted to Protestantism, the ideology that the Scottish Guard was attempting to suppress. On June 30 or July 1, 1559, during a jousting match to celebrate the Peace of Cateau Cambrésis between Henry II and his longtime enemies the Habsburgs, a splinter of wood from Montgomery's shattered lance pierced Henry's eye and entered his brain, mortally injuring him. From his deathbed Henry absolved Montgomery of any blame, but, finding himself disgraced, Montgomery retreated to his estates in Normandy. There he studied theology and converted to Protestantism, making him an enemy of the state. In 1562, Montgomery allied himself with another Protestant convert, Louis I de Bourbon, prince de Condé. He took control of Bourges and during September and October defended Rouen from the Royal Army. He was one of the few refugees to survive the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre after a wounded Huguenot swam across the Seine to warn him that rioting had begun. A price was put on his head, but he managed to escape to England. For the next few years Catherine de' Medici repeatedly asked Queen Elizabeth I for his extradition, to which Elizabeth is reported to have replied "Tell the Queen Mother that I will not act as France's executioner." Montgomery returned to France with a fleet in a vain attempt to relieve La Rochelle in 1573 and the following year he attempted an insurrection in Normandy, but was captured and sentenced to death. On June 26, 1574, as he was about to be beheaded, Montgomery was informed that a royal edict had proclaimed that his property would be confiscated and his children deprived of their titles. Turning to his executioners, he is reported to have said "Tell my children that if they have not the ability to restore what was taken away, then I damn them from the grave." A freely adapted version of Montgomery's life is told in Alexandre Dumas' novel The Two Dianas.
References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
