Henry II de Lorraine, 5th Duke of Guise (Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, 4 April 1614 – 2 June 1664, Paris) was the second son of Charles, Duke of Guise

Charles, Duke of Guise

Charles de Lorraine, 4th Duke of Guise was the son of Henry I, Duke of Guise and Catherine of Cleves.-Biography:...

 and Henriette Catherine de Joyeuse.

Life

At the age of fifteen, he became archbishop of Rheims, but the death of his eldest brother Francis in 1639 placed him in the dukedom the following year. He opposed Richelieu, and conspired with the count of Soissons

Louis de Bourbon, comte de Soissons

Louis de Bourbon, Count of Soissons , was a French nobleman, the son of Charles de Bourbon, Count of Soissons and Anne de Montafié...

, fighting in the Battle of La Marfée

Battle of La Marfée

The Battle of La Marfée was a battle of the Thirty Years' War near Sedan, France on 6 July 1641, between the troops of Louis XIII under Marshall Gaspard III de Coligny and those of the Holy Roman Empire under Prince Louis de Bourbon, the Count of Soissons and Dreux & Duke Frédéric Maurice de La...

 in 1641. For this, he was condemned to death, but fled to Flanders

Flanders

Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

 in 1641. His property was seized by the king in 1641, for crime of lèse majesté

Lèse majesté

Lese-majesty is the crime of violating majesty, an offence against the dignity of a reigning sovereign or against a state.This behavior was first classified as a criminal offence against the dignity of the Roman republic in Ancient Rome...

. Reprieved, he returned in 1643 and his confiscated property was returned to him.

Hoping to make good his family's ancient pretensions to the Kingdom of Naples

Kingdom of Naples

The Kingdom of Naples, comprising the southern part of the Italian peninsula, was the remainder of the old Kingdom of Sicily after secession of the island of Sicily as a result of the Sicilian Vespers rebellion of 1282. Known to contemporaries as the Kingdom of Sicily, it is dubbed Kingdom of...

, he joined the revolt of Masaniello

Masaniello

Masaniello was a Neapolitan fisherman, who became leader of the revolt against Spanish Habsburg rule in Naples in 1647.-Name and place of birth:...

 in 1647. The "Royal Republic of Naples

Neapolitan Republic (1647)

The Neapolitan Republic was a Republic created in Naples, which lasted from 22 October 1647 to 5 April 1648. It began after the revolt led by Masaniello and Giulio Genoino against the Spanish viceroys....

" was declared, appealing to the protection of France and nominally headed by Guise (entitled doge

Doge

Doge is a dialectal Italian word that descends from the Latin dux , meaning "leader", especially in a military context. The wife of a Doge is styled a Dogaressa....

 in imitation of Venice

Republic of Venice

The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...

). However, the tactless Guise rapidly alienated the Neapolitans, and wielded little influence with Cardinal Mazarin. He was captured by the Spaniards in 1648 when the republic fell, and held by them until 1652. He made a second attack on Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 in 1654, but it ended in failure, in part due to the presence of an English fleet under Robert Blake

Robert Blake (admiral)

Robert Blake was one of the most important military commanders of the Commonwealth of England and one of the most famous English admirals of the 17th century. Blake is recognised as the chief founder of England's naval supremacy, a dominance subsequently inherited by the British Royal Navy into...

.

Afterwards, he settled in Paris, becoming Grand Chamberlain of France

Grand Chamberlain of France

The Grand Chamberlain of France was one of the Great Officers of the Crown of France, a member of the Maison du Roi , and one of the Great Offices of the Maison du Roi during the Ancien Régime...

 to Louis XIV

Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

 and going deeply into debt because of his expenditures for horses and entertainments. He was the patron of Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille

Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...

, to whom he gave a lodging in the Hôtel de Guise.

Over the years two women laid claim to being his wife. The first was Anna Gonzaga

Anna Gonzaga

Anne Gonzaga was a French noblewoman and political hostess of Italian descent. She was by marriage Countess Palatine of Simmern, called "Princess Palatine", as the wife of Edward of the Palatinate, a grandson of King James I of England and an uncle of King George I of Great Britain. She bore...

 later known as the "Princess Palatine," who in 1639 appears to have been duped into believing that a clandestine marriage ceremony was the real thing. The second was a widow, Honorée de Berghes, Countess of Bossut, who claimed to have married him in Brussels on November 11, 1641. In March 1666 the Sacra Rota declared the marriage valid; but the King (and the House of Guise) refused to recognize the decision, thereby preventing Mme Bossu from receiving any of the late Duke's vast fortune.

Anna Gonzaga described Duke Henry's "good and bad qualities" as follows:

"Monsieur Guise had the figure, the air and the manners of a hero in a novel, and his entire life bore the mark this character. Magnificence reigned in his entire person and in everything that surrounded him; his conversation was especially charming: everything he said, everything he did, proclaimed that he was an extraordinary man. Ambition and love dominated his projects, which were so vast that they were Homeric; but with such an illustrious name, heroic valor, and a bit of good fortune, nothing exceeded his hopes. He had a gift for making himself loved by all those he wanted to please, which seemed to be the lot of the princes of the House of Lorraine. He was flighty in his attachments, inconstant in his projects, hasty in carrying things out."

He was succeeded by his nephew Louis Joseph de Lorraine

Louis Joseph, Duke of Guise

Louis Joseph de Lorraine Duke of Guise and Duke of Angoulême, was the only son of Louis, Duke of Joyeuse and Marie Françoise de Valois, the only daughter of the Count of Alès, Governor of Provence and son of Charles de Valois Duke of Angoulême, a bastard of Charles IX of France.-Biography:He was...

.