Antoine de Silly
French nobleman, military officer
Antoine de Silly, comte de La Rochepot and baron de Montmirail (–1609) was a French noble, governor, courtier and soldier during the French Wars of Religion. He entered the ducal household of the duc d'Anjou in 1571. In 1574 Anjou became king Henri III. La Rochepot found himself alienated from Henri by the arrangement of a marriage between a royal favourite and a noble promised to his brother. He therefore affiliated himself with the king's brother Alençon and was involved in his escape from court on 14 February 1578. He was with Alençon at Angers as the duc (duke) planned his designs as related to Nederland. Alençon dispatched La Rochepot to conduct negotiations with the graaf van Lalaing (count of Lalaing) by which Alençon would be granted territory in return for military aid. He aided in the recruitment of soldiers for the expedition despite the prohibition of Henri against the enterprise. The expedition would be a failure, and Alençon would return to France in December.
With the Spanish putting Cambrai to siege in 1580, Alençon again made plans to intervene, to relieve the siege. La Rochepot brought an advanced guard of Alençon's cavalry then was present for a general muster of Alençon's forces, aiding in the recruitment effort alongside the seigneur de Fervaques, succeeding in raising a force around 10,000 strong.
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This entry incorporates text from “Antoine de Silly” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.