Bourbon, Charles, known as Conestable or Constable de Bourbon 1490-1527
French soldier

The son of the Count of Montpensier and the only daughter of the Duke of Bourbon, he thus united the vast estates of both these branches of the Bourbon family. For his bravery at the Battle of Marignano in 1515 he was made Conestable of France by Francis I. Having lost royal favour, he renounced the service of France, and concluded a private alliance with the Emperor Charles V (1523), and with Henry VIII of England. In 1524 he was chief commander at the great victory of Pavia, in which Francis I was taken prisoner. But Charles V distrusted him, though he made him Duke of Milan and Spanish commander in Northern Italy. Along with Georg von Frundsberg, he led the mixed army of Spanish and German mercenaries that stormed and plundered Rome in 1527, but was struck down in the fierce struggle - by a bullet fired by Benvenuto Cellini, as the latter asserted.

Bibliography: Desmond Seward, The Bourbon Kings of France (1976)