Guy de Saint-Gelais de Lansac.

About Guy de Saint-Gelais de Lansac

Guy de Saint-Gelais, seigneur de Lanssac was a French courtier, soldier, governor and rebel during the French Wars of Religion. The son of Louis de Saint-Gelais and Jeanne de La Roche-Andry, Lanssac inherited a strong position at the French court due to the great favour of his father. In the mid-1560s he undertook several diplomatic missions to the Holy Roman Empire, participated in the early civil wars in France fighting for the royalists, and undertook an expedition to Malta. In 1570 he was established as governor of Blaye, an important fortress town on the Gironde. With various other grandees he helped organise a naval armada in 1572, though it would ultimately be co-opted by the crown. In 1572 he entered the entourage of the king's brother the duc d'Anjou, and the following year he would participate in the successful effort to see Anjou elected as king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.