At 17 Louise de Coligny married the sieur de Teligny, a follower of her father, the great fighter for reform and Huguenot Gaspard de Coligny. Both father and husband were murdered, 24 August 1572, in the infamous "St. Bartholomeus night" which decimated not only the Protestant ranks in France, but damaged the Protestant cause in the whole of Europe. Charles de Teligny, very much loved and respected in France, was present when his father-in-law was taken away and, knowing what awaited him, followed him into the street, begging to be killed as well. Twice catholic soldiers, recognising him, refused; but on the third occasion, when he was not recognised, he was killed. At 18 years of age she was a widow, and a widows outfit she would wear for the rest of her life, except for one year when, aged 28, she accepted the marriage proposal of the 50 year-old Prince of Orange. The first time they met was in Vlissingen, from where the Prince took her to Antwerpen. Here on 24 April 1583, she became his fourth wife. Capable and conscientious, she also became the beloved step-mother of William of Orange's many children. On 29 January 1584, she gave birth to a son, Frederik Hendrik, in Delft, where the Prince and his family lived in the "Prinsenhof", formally a convent. Her son was named after the two Protestant kings: Frederik of Denmark and Henri of Navarre. The marriage, however, was shortlived but a happy one, though a political embarrassment for the Prince. Her being Huguenot was not what mattered; it was her being French that made her unpopular. Having severed their ties with the king of Spain, the Dutch decided to make the Prince of Orange their Head of State and nominated his title Count of Holland. On 12th of July 1584, he should have been a hereditary Count of Holland; however, on 10th of July in their home in Delft, he was murdered by Balthasar Gerards. Louise, her step-daughters, and the Prince's sister, the Countess of Schwarzburg, were present when the Prince died. Even the Spanish troops in The Netherlands mourned his death. As a widow, unpopular, mother of a six-month-old baby, step-mother of ten children, and penniless, she remained in Holland. Of the six daughters born from the Prince's third marriage, Flandrina had several years before being sent to her grandfather in France; Catharina Belgica went to their aunt, the Countess of Schwarzburg; the other four remained with Louise. Maria, born from the Prince's first marriage, was the same age as Louise and living in her castle in Buren; she looked after Anna, her half-sister from the second marriage, while Emilia, the youngest of the second marriage, remained in Dillenburg with her uncle, Johann VI of Nassau-Dillenburg. The Prince's second son, Maurits, from the second marriage, not yet seventeen years old, took his father's position as Philips Willem (the eldest son from the first marriage) was a prisoner in Spain, having been kidnapped as a schoolboy. It was Louise who in 1609 persuaded Maurits to accept the twelve-year peace treaty with Spain. She failed, however, when in 1617 she tried to prevent the execution of the 72-year-old Johan van Oldenbarnevelt. Shocked and disappointed, she left for France, where she died in Fontainebleau, 13 November 1620. 

Source: Leo van de Pas