Background
Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle was born on the 20th of August 1517 at Besangon, where his father, Nicolas Perrenot de Granvella (1484 - 1550), who afterwards became chancellor of the empire under Charles V, was practising as a lawyer.
(Excerpt from Lettres Interceptes du Cardinal de Granvelle...)
Excerpt from Lettres Interceptes du Cardinal de Granvelle Et Autres M 0 N 5 E 1 c' Le Duc aaccom'ê 4ccam'e par ce?: Chrifi'a?e Plantin drpmeir mprimer le: Lettre: in terrepte'ee du Cardinal Granueee, Ô' autre:: de eeggdant a tou: autre: de le!: zmprimer le terme d'7)ng anï r pein. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle was born on the 20th of August 1517 at Besangon, where his father, Nicolas Perrenot de Granvella (1484 - 1550), who afterwards became chancellor of the empire under Charles V, was practising as a lawyer.
On the completion of his studies in law at Padua and in divinity at Louvain.
He was ordained into the priesthood in 1540.
In his episcopal capacity he attended several diets of the empire, as well as the opening meetings of the Council of Trent, which he addressed on behalf of Charles V. The influence of his father, now chancellor, led to Granvelle being entrusted with many difficult and delicate pieces of public business. In the execution of these tasks he developed a talent for diplomacy, while at the same time acquiring 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 Mühlberg 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 Peace of Passau (August 1552).
In the following year he and Simon Renard, the ambassador of Charles V to the Queen Mary I of England, conducted the negotiations for the marriage of Mary and Philip II of Spain. It was to Philip in 1555, on the abdication of the emperor, that Granvelle 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 surreptitiously appointed chief councillor to the regent Margaret of Parma. [4] 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 archepiscopal 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 on the advice of his royal master he retired to Franche-Comté in March 1564.
After a visit to Rome in 1565; in November 1566 he was appointed as member of the Congregation of "Principi", the centre of the Papal States' foreign policy, by Pope Pius V. In 1570 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 in 1586. His body was taken to Besançon Cathedral, where his father had been buried. His tomb is in Mechelen cathedral.
(Excerpt from Lettres Interceptes du Cardinal de Granvelle...)
In 1570, Granvelle, at the request of Philip, helped to arrange the alliance between the Papacy, Venice and Spain against the Turks, an alliance which was responsible for the victory of Lepanto the next year.