BOURBON, CHARLES, DUKE OF (149o-1527), constable of France, second son of Gilbert, count of Montpensier, was born on Feb. 17, 1490. In 1505 he married Suzanne, heiress of Peter II., duke of Bourbon, by Anne of France, daughter of King Louis XI., and assumed the title of duke of Bourbon. The addition of this duchy to the numerous duchies, countships and other fiefs which he had inherited on the death of his elder brother Louis in 1501, made him at the age of 15 the wealthiest noble in Europe. For his brilliant services at the battle of Marignano (Sept. 1515) he was made governor of the Milanese, which he defended against an attack of the emperor Maximilian. But dissensions arose be tween Francis I. and the constable. He was recalled from the government and in the hard fought campaign in the Netherlands against the emperor Charles V. the command of the vanguard, one of the most cherished prerogatives of the constables, was taken from him. The death of his wife without surviving issue, on April 28, 1521, weakened his territorial position, and afforded the mother of the king, Louise of Savoy, means to gratify her greed. As grand-daughter of Charles, duke of Bourbon (d. 1456), she claimed the female and some of the male fiefs of the duchy of Bourbon, while the king claimed those fiefs which were originally appanages, as escheating to the crown, and other claims were put forward. Before the parlement of Paris, before which the case was brought, was able to arrive at a decision, Francis handed over to his mother a part of the Bourbon estates, and ordered the remainder to be sequestrated.
Bourbon, who for some time had been coquetting with the enemies of France, renewed his negotiations with the emperor and Henry VIII. of England. It was agreed that the constable should raise in his own dominions an armed force to assist the emperor in an invasion of France, and should receive in return the hand of Eleonora, queen dowager of Portugal, or of another of the emperor's sisters. He now escaped across the frontier to the emperor's dominions, but he took no troops with him. The contemplated invasion of France by Henry VIII. and Charles V. failed. In the spring of 1524, Bourbon was with the imperial army in Lombardy which forced the French across the Sesia (where the chevalier Bayard was mortally wounded). In Aug. 1524 he invested Marseilles, but being unable to prevent the intro duction of supplies by Andrea Doria, the Genoese admiral in the service of Francis, he was forced to raise the siege and retreat to the Milanese. He took part in the battle of Pavia 0525), where Francis was defeated and taken prisoner. But Bourbon's troops were clamouring for pay, and the duke was driven to extreme measures to satisfy their demands. After the treaty of Madrid (1526), Bourbon had been offered the duchy of Milan. He now levied contributions from the townsmen, and demanded 20,000 ducats for the .liberation of the chancellor Girolamo Morone (d. 2529), who had been imprisoned for an attempt to realize his dream of an Italy purged of the foreigner. He declined to recog nize the truce which Charles's viceroy in Naples had concluded with Pope Clement VII., and decided to satisfy his starving sol diers with the sack of Rome. On May 5, 1527, the troops ap peared before the walls of Rome. On the following morning Bourbon attacked the Leonine city, and while mounting a scaling ladder fell mortally wounded by a shot, which Benvenuto Cellini in his Life claims to have fired. Af ter Bourbon's death his troops took and sacked Rome.
See 0. de Marillac, Vie du Connetable de Bourbon (1836) ; E. Armstrong, Charles V. (1902) .