Charlotte de Laval - Marriage and Issue

Marriage and Issue

On 15 October 1547 at Fontainebleau, Charlotte married as his first wife, Gaspard de Coligny, Seigneur de Châtillon who would be appointed Admiral of France in 1552. He succeeded Claude d'Annebault as admiral following the latter's death. Their principal residence was the Chateau de Châtillon-Coligny. Gaspard and Charlotte had three children:

• Louise de Coligny (23 September 1555 – 13 November 1620), married firstly on 26 May 1571 Charles de Téligny, who was killed in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572; on 24 April 1583, she married secondly as his fourth wife William "The Silent", Prince of Orange. She had one son by her last marriage, Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange (29 January 1584 – 14 March 1647)
• François de Coligny, Count of Coligny, Seigneur de Châtillon-sur-Loing (28 April 1557 – 8 October 1591), married Marguerite d'Ailly, by whom he had issue.
• Charles de Coligny, Marquis d'Andolet (1564–1632)

Charlotte's husband was taken prisoner at the Battle of Saint-Quentin in 1557, and was released two years later. It was during his imprisonment in the fortress of L'Ecluse that he avidly read the works of John Calvin and by his release in 1559 he had become a fervent Huguenot.

She died on 3 March 1568 in Orléans at the age of thirty-eight. In 1571, Gaspard married secondly Jacqueline de Montbel, by whom he had a posthumous daughter Beatrix, born on 21 December 1572. He had been assassinated four months earlier by paid assassins of Henry I, Duke of Guise allegedly acting under the orders of the French queen mother Catherine de Medici. Immediately upon his death, the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre commenced, in which Charlotte's son-in-law Charles de Téligny also lost his life.

Through her daughter Louise, Charlotte was the ancestress of King William III of England, Frederick the Great, and the present British Royal Family also directly descends from her.