Michel de l'Hôpital was a French lawyer, diplomat and chancellor during the latter Italian Wars and the early French Wars of Religion. The son of a doctor in the service of Constable Bourbon he spent his early life exiled from France at Bourbon's and then the emperors court. When his father entered the service of the House of Lorraine, he entered the patronage network of Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine. Through his marriage to Marie Morin, he acquired a seat in the Paris Parlement. In this capacity he drew up the charges for the king, concerning the defenders of Boulogne who surrendered the city in 1544, before taking a role as a diplomat to the Council of Trent in 1547. The following year he assisted Anne d'Este in the details of her inheritance to ensure she could marry Francis, Duke of Guise.
Portrait of the chancellor
Statue of De l'Hospital by Louis-Pierre Deseine in front of the Palais Bourbon in Paris, installed in 1810.
Statue of L'Hôpital in the Palace of Versailles
Francis II was King of France from 1559 to 1560. He was also King of Scotland as the husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, from 1558 until his death in 1560.
Portrait, c. 1558
Coinage under Francis II, with the bust of his father Henri II
Francis of Lorraine, Duke of Guise. Pencil portrait by François Clouet.
The execution of the conspirators at Amboise. Engraving by Jacques Tortorel and Jean Perrissin, 1569–1570