Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle
Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle (
August 20 1517 -
September 21 1586) was one of the most influential of the church leaders during the time which immediately followed the appearance of
Protestantism in Europe.
He was born on
August 20 1517 at
Besançon, where his father, Nicolas Perrenot de Granvelle (1484â€"1550), who afterwards became chancellor of the empire under
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, was practising as a lawyer. Later Nicolas held an influential position in the
Netherlands, and from
1530 until his death he was one of the emperor's most trusted advisers in Germany. On the completion of his studies in law at
Padua and in divinity at
Leuven, Antoine held a canonry at Besançon, but he was promoted to the
bishopric of Arras when barely twenty-three (
1540).
In his episcopal capacity he attended several diets of the empire, as well as the opening meetings of the
Council of Trent; and the influence of his father, now chancellor, led to his being entrusted with many difficult and delicate pieces of public business, in the execution of which he developed a talent for diplomacy, and at the same time acquired an intimate acquaintance with most of the currents of European politics. He was involved in the settlement of the terms of peace after the defeat of the
Schmalkaldic League at the
Battle of MĂĽhlberg in
1547, a settlement in which, to say the least, some particularly sharp practice was exhibited. In
1550, he succeeded his father in the office of secretary of state; in this capacity he attended Charles in the war with
Maurice of Saxony, accompanied him in the flight from
Innsbruck, and afterwards drew up the
Treaty of Passau (August
1552).
In the following year he conducted the negotiations for the marriage of
Mary I of England and
Philip II of Spain, to whom, in
1555, on the abdication of the emperor, he transferred his services, and by whom he was employed in the Netherlands. In April
1559 Granvelle was one of the Spanish commissioners who arranged the
Peace of Cateau Cambrésis, and on Philip's withdrawal from the Netherlands in August of the same year he was appointed prime minister to the regent,
Margaret of Parma. The policy of repression which in this capacity he pursued during the next five years secured for him many tangible rewards: in
1560 he was elevated to the archiepiscopal see of
Mechelen, and in
1561 he became a cardinal; but the growing hostility of a people whose religious convictions he had set himself to oppose ultimately made it impossible for him to continue in the Netherlands; and by the advice of his royal master he, in March
1564, retired to
Franche Comté.
Nominally this withdrawal was only of a temporary character, but it proved to be final. The following six years were spent in comparative quiet, broken, however, by a visit to Rome in
1565; but in
1570, Granvelle, at the call of Philip, resumed public life by accepting another mission to Rome. Here he helped to arrange the alliance between the Papacy, Venice and Spain against the Turks, an alliance which was responsible for the victory of
Lepanto. In the same year he became viceroy of
Naples, a post of some difficulty and danger, which for five years he occupied with ability and success. He was summoned to
Madrid in
1575 by Philip II to be president of the council for Italian affairs. Among the more delicate negotiations of his later years were those of
1580, which had for their object the ultimate union of the crowns of Spain and Portugal, and those of
1584, which resulted in a check to France by the marriage of the Spanish infanta Catherine to
Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy. In the same year he was made
archbishop of Besançon, but meanwhile he had been stricken with a lingering disease; he was never enthroned, but died at Madrid on
September 21 1586. His body was taken to Besançon, where his father had been buried.
