Gabriel de Lorges, Count of Montgommery

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 festivities for the double wedding of Elisabeth of France to King Philip II of Spain and Marguerite de France to the Duke of Savoy, Montgomery seriously wounded Henry II in a joust held in Paris. During the encounter, Montgomery's lance shattered, and fragments struck Henry in the eye and head, causing the injury from which he died several days later. 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,