Background
He was the first son of Honoré d'Albert (d 1592), seigneur de Luynes, who was in the service of the three last Valois kings and of Henry IV of France.
statesman Councillor of State Governor of the Bastille
He was the first son of Honoré d'Albert (d 1592), seigneur de Luynes, who was in the service of the three last Valois kings and of Henry IV of France.
Charles was brought up at court and attended the dauphin, later Louis XIII. Whose lover he may have become.
The king shared his fondness for hunting and rapidly advanced him in favour. In 1615 he was appointed commander of the Louvre Palace and counsellor, and the following year Grand Falconer of France. He used his influence over the king in the court intrigues against the queen-mother Marie de' Medici and her favourite Concini.
It was Luynes who, with Vitry, captain of the guard, arranged the plot that ended in Concini's assassination (1617) and secured all the latter's possessions in Italy and France. In 1619 he negotiated the Treaty of Angoulême by which Marie de' Medici was accorded complete liberty. His rapid rise to power made him a host of enemies, who looked upon him as but a second Concini.