ODET DE CHÂTILLON DE COLIGNY, Odet de. — Cardinal. Born at Châtillon in 1523 into one of France’s foremost families, died at Canterbury in 1568. At the age of eleven he was created cardinal, with the title of SS. Sergius and Bacchus, by Clement VII at Marseille. In 1534 he was appointed Bishop of Beauvais, and then Archbishop of Toulouse in 1535 under Paul III. He took part in the conclaves of Paul III and Julius III in 1550, and in the assembly of Poissy in 1561. He later embraced Calvinism and took up arms, so that Pius IV in the secret consistory of March 1563 declared him a heretic. In response, C. resumed the purple he had laid aside and married Isabella de Hauteville (“Madame la cardinale”), with whom he had already been living. To this the Pope replied in September 1563 by publishing his deposition. Exiled, he took refuge in England, at the court of Queen Elizabeth.
Luigi Michelini Tocci