1639: The Duke of Valette, in effigy
Add comment June 8th, 2018 Headsman
On this date in 1639, the Duke of Valette was beheaded in Paris as a traitor. Having anticipated this cruel stroke, however, he was happily away in England at the time.
Valette‘s father, the Duke of Epernon, was a rival of the realm’s mighty consigliere, Cardinal Richelieu, which was a dangerous thing to be. The rivalry had already impacted the duke’s second son: Valette was married to Richelieu’s niece in 1634, in a vain bid for detente. (Valette preferred his mistress.)
Valette’s military reversal at the French Siege of Fuenterrabia in 1638 set him up for the revenge of his scheming in-law. Blamed for refusing to lead an ill-conceived charge, he got the Iraq War critic treatment when that charge turned into a debacle as he had warned.
But rather than face Richelieu’s summons to answer a charge he obviously had no odds of defeating, Valette crossed the channel and chilled in the exile court of another defeated Richelieu foe, Marie de’ Medici.
“The Cardinal de Richelieu not contented with his having left the Kingdom, caus’d a Process to be commenc’d against him,” outrageously fixing the verdict.
Just as Valette lost his head only ceremonially, he lost his homeland only temporarily. When Louis XIII died in 1643, Valette — by this time become the Duke of Epernon — was able to return and re-enter the ranks of respectable nobility, unimperiled by the headsman’s blade for the remainder of his days. He died in 1661.
On this day..
- 1967: The USS Liberty attack ... after executions in El Arish? - 2020
- 1627: Catlyn Fiermoing, village witch - 2019
- 1658: John Hewett and Henry Slingsby, royalists - 2017
- 1743: John Breads, Rye killer - 2016
- 1953: Istvan Sandor, underground Catholic - 2015
- 1989: Stefan Svitek, the last in Czechoslovakia - 2014
- 1866: Anton Probst, "I only wanted the money" - 2013
- 1693: Elizabeth Emerson - 2012
- 1675: The murderers of John Sassamon, precipitating King Philip's War - 2011
- 1896: Bill Gay, prospector - 2010
- 1405: Richard le Scrope and Thomas de Mowbray, without color of law - 2009
- 1934: Three inept murderers (with a fourth to come) - 2008
Entry Filed under: 17th Century,Beheaded,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Executed in Effigy,Execution,France,History,Nobility,Not Executed,Power,Public Executions,Treason,Wrongful Executions
Recent Comments