Henry de La Trémoille

Henry de La Trémoille (22 December 1598—21 January 1674) was the 3rd Duke of Thouars, 2nd Duke of La Tremoille, and Prince of Talmond and Taranto. He was the son of Claude, Duc de Thouars and his wife, Charlotte Brabantina of Nassau, and a descendant of the medieval general Louis de La Trémoille.

Family

La Trémoille married his first cousin, Marie de La Tour d'Auvergne, in 1619. They had five children: Henry Charles, Louis Maurice, Élisabeth, Marie-Charlotte, and Armand-Charles.

Career

La Trémoille's father, Claude, had converted to Protestantism during the French Wars of Religion, but La Trémoille converted the family back to Catholicism around the time Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIII suppressed the Huguenot rebellion at the siege of La Rochelle in 1628. Following the siege, La Trémoille continued to serve in the French army, being wounded in action in Italy. Following that campaign, La Trémoille switched to a political career.

In 1668, Henri afflicted with the gout, left the businesses of his duchy to his elder son. He died on 21 January 1674, seventy-five years old, and was buried in Thouars.

Ancestry and claims

La Trémoille was the heir-general of Frederick IV of Naples and his first wife Anne of Savoy, and succeeded to the Cypriot claims to the title of King of Jerusalem when his father died. He was the heir-general of Anne of Savoy, whose daughter Charlotte became in 1499 the "de jure" heiress of the claim of the Kings of Cyprus to the throne of Jerusalem. Since Frederick IV was the second son of Isabella of Taranto and Ferrante I of Naples, he also succeeded to the Brienne claims to Kingdom of Jerusalem of his distant cousin John Casimir of Poland at the latter's death 1672, uniting the successions of Brienne and of Cyprus to the "de jure" crown of Jerusalem.