I shall come to the matter of a name, but let’s start with the Battle of Coutras. It was fought on 20th October 1587 during the French Wars of Religion. The Protestant Huguenots were led by the charismatic Henry of Navarre, and the Catholic League was commanded by the Duke of Joyeuse.
Joyeuse had forced marched his army through the night to reach Coutras, whereas the Huguenots had enjoyed a full night’s sleep.
The forces were well matched in numbers, but the Huguenots were more battle hardened. Joyeuse spread his line thinly, affording as many glory-hungry nobility as possible to be at the head of a charge. Henry opted for strength in depth. The battle lasted barely two hours. Joyeuse and his younger brother were captured, and Joyeuse offered to pay a ransom for the release of himself and his brother. However Captain La Mothe executed him with a pistol shot to the head. Henry of Navarre arranged for their bodies to be returned to Paris for a proper funeral and wrote a letter of apology to King Henry III.
So that was the end of Anne of Joyeuse, Baron of Arques, Duke of Joyeuse, and Admiral of France. He died at the age of twenty-seven. Yes, that’s right, his name was Anne. Anne was not uncommon as a man’s name in those days, and Wikipedia tells me that it’s still a mans name in the Netherlands.
When I was writing The Spy who Sank the Armada I wrote a scene in which Sir Anthony Standen met his younger brother’s wife. I initially gave her the name Anne. When I later found via Ancestry that my 10th great-grandfather was Edmund Standen, the younger brother in question, and that his wife’s name was Dennis, I was in a quandary. My research told me that Dennis was quite common as a woman’s name in the 16th century, but I didn’t think 21st century audiences were ready for it. I could have added a footnote but I added an e and made her Dennise.
Anne of Joyeuse was one of two favourites of King Henry III of France. The other was Jean Louis de Nogaret de la Valette, Duke of Epernon, who is a character in The Suggested Assassin, the third book in the Sir Anthony Standen Adventures.