His Excellency Urbain de Saint-Gelais | |
|---|---|
| Bishop of Comminges | |
 Cathedral of Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges | |
| Church | Roman Catholic Church |
| Diocese | Comminges |
| Appointed | 1570 |
| Term ended | 5 February 1613 |
| Predecessor | Pierre d'Albret |
| Successor | Gilles de Souvré (évêque) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1540 |
| Died | 5 February 1613 |
| Parents | Louis de Saint-Gelais, seigneur de Lanssac Louise de La Béraudière |
Urbain de Saint-Gelais, bishop of Comminges (1540–5 February 1613) was a prelate, diplomat, military leader and rebel during the French Wars of Religion. Urbain was born in 1540, the illegitimate son of the royal favourite Louis de Saint-Gelais, seigneur de Lanssac and Louise de La Béraudière. Thanks to the court influence of his father, he secured the sensitive bishopric of Comminges on the border with Spain in 1570. He would hold this charge for the rest of his life. He quickly ingratiated himself with his flock, seeing to it that their privileges were affirmed by the king Henri III in 1574. His involvement in the first Catholic Ligue (League) in 1576 is speculated, though he remained in good royal graces, and was tasked in 1579 with conducting a diplomatic mission to Lisbon to champion the rights of the queen mother Catherine to the Portuguese throne, though the mission was not a success.
His involvement in the second Catholic Ligue that emerged in response to the death of the king's brother the duc d'Anjou (duke of Anjou) in 1584 which established the Protestant king of Navarre as the heir to the throne, is more definitive. He helped arrange the accord between the leaders of the Catholic ligue and the Spanish crown, and participated in the war with the crown in 1585, both by encouraging the estranged queen of Navarre in her rebellion and in his own military actions in Comminges. His see of Saint-Bertrand was sacked by a Protestant force in 1586 and he had to reconquer it by siege. He participated in the Estates General of 1588 as a ligueur aligned representative and fled from Blois after the king executed the leader of the Catholic ligue in a royal coup in December.
Arriving in Toulouse he marshalled the city towards the ligueur camp, being elevated to governor of the city for the ligue at the end of January for the war against the crown. In February two leading parlementaires in the city were accused of involvement in a royalist plot and lynched. The bishop of Comminges' involvement in this is a matter of debate. He established a new religious confraternity in the city and worked to build connections with the Spanish and raise a ligueur army for Toulouse. He found himself in conflict with the ligueur governor of Languedoc the vicomte de Joyeuse, who (alongside the duc de Mayenne) was unnerved by Comminges' Spanish sympathies. Joyeuse moved to oust him from Toulouse, and succeeded in November in forcing him from the city. The bishop returned to Comminges where he spent the next several years nourishing the local ligueur movement (known as the Ligue Campanère). He consistently supported the Spanish king Felipe II, working towards an invasion of France across the Pyrénées, something he advocated for both in his writings to the Spanish court, and when he visited Madrid on a diplomatic mission. As the war dragged on, the situation became increasingly bleak for the ligueur cause, with the king of Navarre (now styled Henri IV after the assassination of Henri III) converting to Catholicism and winning many converts to his cause. The bishop of Comminges remained defiant, despite a faux submission made in June 1594. It would only be with the absolution of Henri IV by the Pope in September 1595 that the bishop made his genuine capitulation. Henri left him in his bishopric, and he would remain there until his death in 1613.