1604–75, duke of Lorraine. He succeeded to the duchy in 1624 but was to lose it several times because of his anti-French policy. In 1633, French troops invaded Lorraine in retaliation for Charles's support of Gaston d' Orléans. Forced to make humiliating concessions to France, he abdicated (1634) in favor of his brother and entered the imperial service in the Thirty Years War. He briefly recovered his lands in 1641 and 1644, but he was excluded from the Peace of Westphalia (1648) at the war's conclusion. Although he joined the Spanish during the Fronde, he communicated with the French government and as a result was imprisoned by the Spanish (1654–59). In 1661, at the price of heavy concessions to King Louis XIV, Charles recovered Lorraine and the duchy of Bar. Expelled once more by the French in 1670, Charles later helped to instigate the alliance of Spain and the Holy Roman emperor with the Dutch in the third of the Dutch Wars. In 1675 he defeated François de Créquy at Konzer Bruck.

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