François d'Espinay

François d'Espinay, seigneur de Saint-Luc et baron de Crèvecœur (c. 1554 –8 September 1597) was a French noble, courtier, military commander and governor during the later French Wars of Religion. Born into the middling Norman nobility as a son of Valéran d'Espinay and Marguerite de Groucher, Saint-Luc had his debut into French politics with his participation in the siege of La Rochelle in 1573 in which he was injured. When the king's brother Anjou was elected king of the Commonwealth he travelled with the prince to his new kingdom, serving as his Chambellan in the country. Upon Anjou's return to France as Henri III, Saint-Luc maintained his proximity to the king, holding various positions in his household. A man with significant skill in war, he served the crown during the fifth war of religion, fighting at Guise's celebrated victory of Dormans. In the following civil war he fought under the command of the king's brother Alençon at the sieges of La Charité-sur-Loire and Issoire. He was rewarded for his military service with command of various regiments and the position of maître de camp. At the end of the sixth war of religion, the duke of Mayenne secured the strategic Guyenne town of Brouage, which controlled a deep port and salt production. In December 1578 Saint-Luc was appointed governor of Brouage. In May 1579 he added the governate of Aunis to his responsibilities. In the autumn he accompanied Catherine de Medici, mother to the queen on her mission to negotiate with Henri's disgraced favourite Marshal Bellegarde who had set himself up in rebellion.

In February 1580, Saint-Luc entered rebellion himself and fled from court to Brouage. A host of reasons have been proposed by contemporaries and later historians for his disgrace. In the following months he and the local royal commander postured and negotiated, before he was brought back into obedience with a compromise in June by which he agreed to divest himself of his governate in return for financial compensation, forgiveness and the release of his wife Jeanne de Cossé from royal captivity. He would not however yield Brouage, and he remained distrusted by Henri. Looking for a new patron, he supported Alençon in his campaigns into Nederland. He stayed with Alençon until the disaster of the surprise of Antwerp. Upon the death of Alençon in July 1584, the king's heir due to his childlessness, he aligned himself with the Catholic ligue that was established by the Lorraine family to oppose the succession of the Protestant Navarre. He fought with the ligue against the king in 1585, which convinced Henri he needed to re-secure good terms with his former favourite. With peace in September, the king made an offer to buy him out of Brouage for 300,000 livres, however this did not go anywhere. With the crown now at war with the Protestants as a term of the peace, he was unsuccessfully besieged by Navarre's cousin the prince of Condé. In 1587 he was captured at the disastrous Battle of Coutras, fought against Navarre. Upon the death of Henri III, he quickly flocked to Navarre's banner, despite his Protestantism and fought against the Catholic ligue that opposed him. He was rewarded with the post of lieutenant-general of Bretagne in 1592, then lieutenant-general of Picardie in April 1596. Established as grand maître de l'artillerie on the resignation of La Guiche he would die in the conduct of this charge on 8 September 1597 during the siege of Amiens.