Gabriel de Lorges, Count of Montgomery, Lord of Lorges and Ducey (5 May 153026 June 1574), was a French nobleman of Scottish extraction and captain of the Scots Guard of King Henry II of France. He is remembered for mortally injuring Henry II in a jousting accident and subsequently converting to Protestantism, the faith that the Scots Guard sought to suppress. He later became a leader of the Huguenots and was executed for his actions in the French Wars of Religion. In French-language contexts, his name is spelled Montgommery.
Career
Gabriel de Lorges was born on 5 May 1530 in Ducey, Normandy. He later became the captain of King Henry II's Garde Écossaise.
On 30 June 1559, during a jousting match to celebrate the Peace of Cateau Cambrésis between Henry II and his longtime Habsburg enemies, and two major marriages, namely that of Marguerite, the king's sister, with the Duke of Savoy Emmanuel-Philibert, and that of Elisabeth, the king's eldest daughter, with King Philip II of Spain, a splinter of wood from Montgomery's shattered lance pierced Henry's eye and entered his brain, fatally injuring him. From his deathbed Henry absolved Montgomery of any blame, before dying on 10 July 1559. However, finding himself disgraced, Montgomery retreated to his estates in Normandy. and sentenced to death. On 26 June 1574, as he was about to be beheaded,