| Thomas Francis | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
_-_Gem%25C3%25A4ldegalerie_Berlin_-_5404917.jpg) Portrait byAnthony van Dyck, 1634 | |||||
| Prince of Carignano | |||||
| Tenure | 29 April 1620 – 22 January 1656 | ||||
| Successor | Emmanuel Philibert | ||||
| Born | (1596-12-21)21 December 1596 Turin,Duchy of Savoy | ||||
| Died | 22 January 1656(1656-01-22) (aged 59) Turin, Duchy of Savoy | ||||
| Spouse | |||||
| Issue | Princess Christine Charlotte Princess Louise Emmanuel Philibert, Prince of Carignano Prince Amedeo Prince Joseph Emmanuel Eugene Maurice, Count of Soissons Prince Ferdinand | ||||
| |||||
| House | Savoy (Carignano branch) | ||||
| Father | Charles Emmanuel I | ||||
| Mother | Caterina Micaela of Austria | ||||
Thomas Francis of Savoy, Prince of Carignano (Italian:Tommaso Francesco di Savoia, Principe di Carignano;French:Thomas François de Savoie, Prince de Carignan; 21 December 1596 – 22 January 1656) was a military commander and member of theHouse of Savoy. He was the founder of theCarignano branch of the House of Savoy, which reigned askings of Piedmont–Sardinia from 1831 to 1861, and askings of Italy from 1861 until the dynasty's deposition in 1946.
Born inTurin, Thomas was the youngest of the five legitimate sons of the sovereign DukeCharles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy by his consortCaterina Micaela of Austria, a daughter of KingPhilip II of Spain and the French princessElisabeth of France. His mother died the following year. While still a young man, Thomas bore arms in the service of the king of Spain in Italy.[1]
Although in previous reigns, younger sons had been granted richappanages in Switzerland (Genevois,Vaud), Italy (Aosta), or France (Nemours,Bresse), the Savoy dukes found that this inhibited their own aggrandizement while encouraging intra-dynastic strife and regionalsecession. Not only did Thomas have older brothers, he was but one of the twenty-one acknowledged children of Charles Emmanuel. While only nine of these were legitimate, the others, being the widowed duke's offspring bynoble mistresses, appear to have been generouslyendowed ordowered during their father's lifetime.
Thefief of Carignano had belonged to the Savoys since 1418, and the fact that it was part ofPiedmont, only twenty km. south of Turin, meant that it could be a "princedom" for Thomas in name only, being endowed neither with independence nor revenues of substance.[2] Instead of receiving a significantpatrimony, Thomas was wed in 1625 toMarie de Bourbon; she was sister to andco-heiress withLouis, Count of Soissons,[3] who would be killed in 1641 whilefomenting rebellion againstCardinal Richelieu.
In anticipation of this inheritance Thomas and Marie did not establish themselves at his brother's capital, Turin, but dwelt inParis, where Marie enjoyed the exalted rank of aprincess du sang, being a second cousin of KingLouis XIII. It was arranged that Thomas, as son of a reigning monarch, would hold the rank of first among theprinces étrangers at the French court—taking precedence even before the formerly all-powerfulHouse of Guise, whose kinship to the sovereignDuke of Lorraine was more remote.[1] He was appointedGrand Maître of the king's household, briefly replacing the traitorousGrand Condé. He engaged the services of the distinguished grammarian and courtierClaude Favre de Vaugelas as tutor for his children.
The prospect of Marie's eventual succession to the Swiss principality ofNeuchâtel, near Savoy, was foiled in 1643 by the king's decision tolegitimate Louis Henri de Bourbon,chevalier de Soissons (1640–1703), a son of Marie's late brother. This prevented the substitution of Savoyard for French influence in that region, but left Thomas with little more than the empty title of "prince de Carignano". Marie did eventually inherit her brother's main holding in France, the county of Soissons, but this would be established as asecundogeniture for the French branch of the family. After Thomas, the senior branch of his descendantsrepatriated to Savoy, alternately marrying French, Italian and German princesses.
Thomas' first recorded service is as a commander in the Piedmontese army under his father in the war against France in 1630 (seeWar of the Mantuan Succession). It was probably around this time that he first encounteredMazarin, who (though his public position was quite complex) was during 1630–32 in effect a French agent at the Piedmontese court. When the new Duke Victor Amadeus I was forced to accept a French occupation ofPinerolo (Peace of Cherasco, 26 April 1631, and associated secret agreements, implemented 1632), there was widespread dissatisfaction in Piedmont, and Thomas, with his brother Maurice, went to join the Spanish, at which Victor Amadeus confiscated their revenues. (The exact date of the move is unstated, but was probably 1632, certainly no later than 1634.) Though welcomed by the Spanish given that he was related to both the French and Spanish royal families, Thomas was not entirely trusted by them, and had to send his wife and children to Madrid as hostages.[4]
Spain, during the burst of confidence after its unexpected great victory atNordlingen in 1634, made plans for major operations in Germany to end the war against the Protestants there and in the Netherlands; these plans included Thomas leading an army in Westphalia, under the overall command of theCardinal-Infante Ferdinand, brother of Philip IV. Nothing came of this, but in 1635, when France declared war on Spain (Franco-Spanish war of 1635–59), Thomas served under Ferdinand in the Spanish Netherlands: he was given command of a small army (variously given as 8,500 or 13,000) sent against French forces that had advanced into Luxemburg, his orders either to observe them or to prevent them from joining up with a Dutch army. On 22 May 1635 atLes Avins, south of Huy, in what was then thebishopric of Liège, he was defeated by the French army commanded by Breezé and Chatillon. He managed to rally the remnants at Namur, then retreated before the numerically-superior French and Dutch forces; and he probably served the rest of the campaign with Ferdinand. Late in the year, the refugeeCharles IV, Duke of Lorraine arrived in Brussels and met Thomas; they may have formed a joint court, and Thomas certainly participated in jousts organised by the Duke.[5] (In this Franco-Spanish war, Piedmont was reluctantly dragged into the fighting alongside the French, though initially it avoided a full declaration of war; consequently, Thomas was technically fighting against his own homeland.)
In 1636, theCardinal-Infante Ferdinand organised a joint Spanish-Imperial army for a major invasion of France from theSpanish Netherlands, and Thomas was initially in charge, defeating the French army commanded by Soisons, at the Somme, though Ferdinand soon took over supreme command. The invasion was initially very successful, and seemed capable of reaching Paris, where there was a great panic; if Ferdinand and Thomas had pushed on, they might have ended the war at this point, but they both felt that continuing to Paris was too risky, so they stopped the advance. Later in the campaign, Thomas had problems with the Imperial generalOttavio Piccolomini, who refused to accept orders from the Prince as a Spanish commander, arguing that his Imperial troops were an independent force. Military action for Thomas is not recorded in 1637, but in this year, when his brother-in-lawSoissons fled from France after his failed conspiracy againstCardinal Richelieu, he acted as intermediary between Soissons and the Spanish in negotiations which led to a formal alliance between the count andPhilip IV of Spain concluded 28 June 1637 - although within a month Soissons had reconciled with France! In 1638, Thomas served in Spanish Flanders, helping to defend the fortress-city ofSaint-Omer against a French siege; in mid-June, he managed to get reinforcements into the place, then with the rest of his small army entrenched about 15 km. to the north-west atRuminghem, opposite the French army underJacques-Nompar de Caumont, duke of La Force atZouafques; after being joined by Imperial reinforcements underOttavio Piccolomini, he marched to attack La Force, and was defeated with the loss of 2,000 men killed or captured (action at Zouafques, exact date unknown but around 21 June). However, he then marched back with his remaining troops to the continuing French siege of Saint-Omer, where he put in more reinforcements and then entrenched himself so securely in the vicinity that the French found it impossible to continue the siege and gave up. Thomas and Piccolimini subsequently stuck so close to La Force that the French were unable to undertake any serious operations.[6]
After seeking Spanish support late in 1638 for action against RegentChristine Marie,Madame Royale, Thomas went to SpanishMilan early in 1639, and alongside Spanish forces invaded Piedmont, where many towns welcomed him. He took Turin by trickery, but the French continued to control its citadel. In 1640, he held the city in the multi-layeredsiege of Turin. After repeated bouts of negotiations with the Regent and the French, Thomas made peace with both in the first half of 1642, and unblushingly changed sides and started fighting with the French against the Spaniards.
For the rest of 1642 and part of the 1643 campaigns, Thomas commanded Piedmontese forces fighting alongside the French underHenri d'Orléans, Duke of Longueville against the Spanish, generally along the Piedmont/Milan border; when Longueville was recalled home, Thomas succeeded him as allied commander-in-chief, withTurenne as his second-in-command. (Thomas was given the supreme command only because of his birth; another French general, Du Plessis Praslin, noted a few years later that French marshals would only serve under someone who was superior to them in social rank, and Thomas, with his blood relationship to the French and Spanish royal families, was the only candidate.[7]) By late summer, both Thomas and Turenne were seriously ill andDu Plessis Praslin was in temporary command. Thomas led the joint armies again in 1644, taking Santya and Asti; he also tried to takeFinale Ligure, but gave up the attempt, apparently because he feared this valuable port would end up in French control rather than Piedmontese. In 1645, now commanding with Du Plessis Praslin, he took Vigevano, but was defeated at the River Mora. In 1646, Thomas was put in command of the French expedition sent south to take the Tuscanforts, after which he was to advance further south to Naples, drive out the Spanish and put himself on the throne of the kingdom; but the expedition set off late, and when hebesieged Orbetello, the supporting French fleet was defeated by the Spanish and he was forced to raise the siege and conduct a difficult retreat, which he performed so poorly thatCardinal Mazarin subsequently despised his command ability, viewed him as incompetent, and declined to appoint him to the expedition that France sent to support theNaples revolt late in 1647[8] (this did not stop Mazarin from considering him as a potential candidate for a French-backed King of Naples, though Paris was so slow to move on this thatHenry II, Duke of Guise was adopted by the Neapolitans instead). In the 1647 campaign, Thomas is mentioned as commanding alongside the French general in the forces sent across north Italy to work with the Duke of ModenaFrancesco I d'Este who had just allied with France and opened up a 'second front' against the Spaniards inMilan, though Mazarin confessed that he had appointed Thomas only because he feared that, if left behind in Piedmont, the Prince's restless spirit would make more trouble.[8] By spring of 1648 however he was back in Piedmont, fighting on the Piedmont-Milan border to distract the Spanish from their pressure on Modena; in the summer, he was put in charge of an army sent on a fleet to Naples - the Naples revolt had already collapsed by then, so the expedition found no support when it landed and after some pointless actions it re-embarked, a complete failure (some details inNaples revolt). On his return with the French fleet, Thomas was delayed in Provence and unable to join the great siege ofCremona where he was expected.
During his absence, RegentChristine had gained control of the fortresses granted to Thomas as part of the settlement of thePiedmontese Civil War (legally, these reverted to ducal control when the Duke came of age), which under Piedmontese lawCharles Emmanuel did in 1648, though his mother remained in control of the government; Christine, accompanied by her son and part of the ducal army, entered Ivrea and dismissed Thomas' personal garrison; she appointed Thomas instead as governor or Asti and Alba, positions which sweetened the blow but were entirely under ducal control, not guaranteed by treaty. When he returned to Piedmont, Thomas had no choice but to accept the fait accompli, and soon after this he went to live in Paris.
During theFronde, Thomas linked himself closely withCardinal Mazarin, who, although effectively prime minister of France, was like him an Italian outsider at the French court. In the early 1650s, Thomas was seen as an important member of Mazarin's party, closely linked to the Cardinal, regularly seen in conference with him, and active in his support. In 1651 when Mazarin had been forced into exile, the Prince was for a time brought onto the conseil du roi, and an (admittedly very hostile) contemporary the duchesse de Nemours described him as a 'prime minister without being aware of it'; there were suggestions that Mazarin's opponents within the court had raised him up as a rival to the cardinal with the Queen, but this is unlikely, especially since Mazarin himself urged the Queen to follow Thomas' advice, and it is more probable that Mazarin backed the Prince as someone who would keep other rivals from gaining control in his absence but who would never have the status within France to set himself up as a permanent replacement for the Cardinal. By the time Mazarin returned from his second and last exile in February 1653, Thomas, who accompanied the court to St Denis to welcome the Cardinal home, was insignificant again - an analysis of Mazarin's close colleagues at this time by the later historianChéruel made no mention of him.[9] In January 1654, when the last of the ceremonial offices formerly belonging to the rebel leaderLouis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé were disposed of, Prince Thomas was madeGrand Maitre.
The Franco-Spanish war had been continuing in north Italy, and late in 1654, increasing Piedmontese hostility to the current French commander Grancey led to a search for a new allied commander-in-chief; the French would have preferred to send theDuke of York (later King James II), but he too was unacceptable to Turin, so Thomas was appointed as joint commander - though his wife was held in France almost as a hostage for his good behaviour. On 16 December 1654 he arrived in Turin, to a ceremonial welcome by the French troops and an unexpectedly friendly reception byCharles Emmanuel.[10] On 4 April 1655 Thomas Francis commanded theWaldensians to attend Mass or remove to the upper valleys, giving them twenty days in which to sell their lands. The Duke of Savoy sent an army and on 24 April, at 4 a.m., the signal was given for a general massacre so brutal, that it aroused indignation throughout Europe. Oliver Cromwell began petitioning on behalf of the Vaudois, and John Milton wrote his famous poem about this, "On the Late Massacre in Piedmont." In the 1655 campaign, he led an invasion of theDuchy of Milan, though already ill with malaria, and besiegedPavia, where the attack went so badly that he was forced to leave his sick-bed to take direct control of the siege, and even then it had to be raised after nearly two months of fruitless effort.
After the 1655 campaign, Thomas returned to Turin where he died the following January; the suggestion in Spanheim that he diedat the siege of Pavia[11] is not supported - malaria, a common problem in the marshes of the Po valley, carried him off, as it carried off his successor as allied commander-in-chief,Francesco I d'Este.
Thomas andMarie de Bourbon had seven children (Italian names in parentheses):
| Ancestors of Thomas Francis, Prince of Carignano |
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