House of Rohan

See Rohan (disambiguation) for other uses of the word.

The house of Rohan was a family of viscounts, later dukes and princes, coming from the locality of Rohan in Brittany, descending from the viscounts of Porhoët and said to trace back to the legendary Conan Meriadoc. Through the Porhoët, the Rohan were related to the Dukes of Brittany, with whom the family intermingled again in after its inception. They developed ties with the French and English royal houses as well, and played an important role in French and European history.

Branches and titles

Alain I de Rohan, son of the viscount of Porhoët, was the first to take on the name of Rohan, after the place were he was born.

The main branch of the family ended when Jean II died childless; the title and possessions passed on to the cadet branch of Rohan-Gié.

When the first duke of Rohan, Henri II de Rohan-Gié, died, his title and name passed on to the Chabot family as his only daughter married Henri Chabot. This created the Rohan-Chabot lineage, which was not really a branch of the Rohan family.

During the 17th and 18th centuries the Rohan also bore the title Prince Étranger habitué en France.

• Rohan-Gié, extinct 1638
• Rohan-Soubise, extinct 1787

Genealogy

Dukes of Rohan

• Henri II de Rohan-Gié (1579-1638) started viscount, then became the 1st duc de Rohan, and peer of France

Princes of Rohan lineage

• Hercule Mériadec de Rohan (1669-1749)

1911 EB article

The name Rohan derived from a small town in Morbihan, Brittany. The family appears to have sprung from the viscounts of Porhoet, and claims connection with the ancient sovereigns of Brittany. From the 12th century it held an important place in the history of Brittany, and strengthened its position by alliances with the greatest houses in France.

It was divided into several branches, the eldest of which, that of the viscounts of Rohan, became extinct in 1527. Of the younger branches the most famous is that of Guemenee, from which sprang the branches of Montbazon, Soubise and Gie. The seigneurs of Frontenay, an offshoot of this last branch, inherited by marriage the property of the eldest branch of the house. Hercule de Rohan, duc de Montbazon (1568-1654) served Henry III and Henry IV against the Catholic League, and was made by Henry IV governor of Paris and the Isle of France, and master of the hounds. His grandson, Louis de Rohan-Guemenee, the chevalier de Rohan, who was notorious for his dissolute life, conspired with the Dutch against Louis XIV and was beheaded in Paris in 1674.

In the 18th century the Soubise branch furnished several prelates, cardinals and bishops of Strassburg, among others the famous cardinal de Rohan, the hero of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace. The seigneurs of Gie, a branch founded by Pierre de Rohan (1453-1513), a cadet of the branch of Guemenee and marshal of France, were conspicuous on the Protestant side during the wars of religion. Rene de Rohan, seigneur of Pontivy and Frontenay, commanded the Calvinist army in 1570, and the cardinal de Rohan defended Lusignan with great valour when it was besieged by the Catholics (1574-75). His son Henry, the first duke of Rohan, also distinguished himself in the Protestant army. His only child, Marguerite de Rohan, married in 1645 Henri Chabot, a cadet of a great family of Poitou. This marriage was opposed by her mother, Marguerite de Bethune, who put forward a rival heir called Tancred, whom she claimed to be her son by the duke of Rohan. This Tancred perished in the Fronde in 1649.

The property and titles of Henry de Rohan thus passed to the Chabot family, which under the name of Rohan-Chabot produced some distinguished soldiers, and a Cardinal and archbishop of Besancon. The male line of the Rohans is now represented by an offshoot of the Rohan-Guemenee branch.

See also

• Almanach de Gotha
• List of French peerages

• Brittany
• Duke of Brittany
• Josselin
• Rohan Castle
• Palais Rohan, Bordeaux
• Palais Rohan, Strasbourg

• Sychrov Castle, Bohemia
• Lysa nad Labem, Bohemia

• Carlos, Duke of Madrid
• Louis Rene Edouard, Cardinal de Rohan
• Marie de Rohan-Montbazon, Duchesse de Chevreuse
• Charles de Rohan, Prince de Soubise
• Affair of the Diamond Necklace
• Joseph Hardtmuth

External links

• [[1]]

• http://web.archive.org/web/20030606223416/http://genealogy.euweb.cz/rohan/rohan1.html