William de Croÿ

Cardinal Guillaume, Guillermo or William de Croÿ (1497 – 6 January 1521), a member of the noble House of Croÿ, was Prince-Bishop of Cambrai from 1516 to 1519 and Archbishop of Toledo from 1517 to 1521. He was born in the Habsburg Netherlands and died in Worms, Germany.

Family and early life William de Croÿ was the son of Henry de Croÿ, count of Porcien, and Charlotte de Châteaubriant. One of his uncles was the powerful William de Croÿ, Lord of Chièvres, a leading adviser to the future Holy Roman Emperor, Charles of Ghent. Another was Jacques de Croÿ, prince-bishop of Cambrai. The young William was tutored by the Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives. He matriculated at the University of Leuven on 3 September 1511. He was later the dedicatee of Vives' Meditationes (Leuven, 1518), and of Jacobus Latomus' De trium linguarum (Antwerp, 1519), both figures who had mentored him at university. This appointment made him duke of Cambrai, count of Cambrésis, and a prince of the Holy Roman Empire. On 1 April 1517, Pope Leo X appointed him cardinal deacon of Santa Maria in Aquiro. After a funeral service in Worms on 21 January, A contemporary account by Alonso de Santa Cruz, historiographer royal to King Philip II, said that "it was a just judgment of God that neither did Croy enjoy the archbishopric nor was the Marquis restored."