Jacques d'Albon

Jacques d'Albon, Seigneur de Saint-André (French pronunciation: [ʒak dalbɔ̃]; c. 1505–1562) was a French governor, Marshal, and favourite of Henri II. He began his career as a confident of the dauphin during the reign of François I, reared with the prince under the governorship of his father at court. In 1547 at the advent of Henri's reign he was appointed as his father's deputy, serving as lieutenant general for the Lyonnais. Concurrently he entered the king's conseil privé and was made a Marshal and Grand Chamberlain.

With the resumption of the Italian Wars, Saint André found himself serving to protect the recently acquired city of Verdun during the emperor's campaign into the region in 1552. In 1553 he was subordinate to Anne de Montmorency in the French campaign in Picardy, however neither he nor Montmorency achieved much of note. In 1557 he was present during the disaster at Saint-Quentin and was captured, while much of the rest of the army was destroyed. In captivity as a valuable prisoner for the next year he was granted leave to visit the court in the hopes he could convince the French king to come to the peace table. Having been ransomed in 1559 he was among those campaigning for the king to take a harder line on Protestantism, resulting in the Edict of Ecouen.

With the death of the king during peace celebrations, he maintained his favour under the young François II, assisting the king in combating the Conspiracy of Amboise. After the young king's premature death later that year he found himself without a place in the new liberal administration. Alongside Montmorency and Guise he formed an alliance hoping to combat Protestantism and protect the Catholic character of France, popularly known as the 'triumvirate'. He campaigned for the crown during the first war of religion, succeeding in capturing the towns of Poitiers and Angoulême before being executed on the field of Dreux after being captured by an aristocrat with whom he had personal animosity.