Jacques Bochetel de la Forest or de La Forêt was a French politician, treasurer of the household to Francis II of France, and ambassador at the court of Elizabeth I.
Occupation
diplomat
Died
1595
Overview
Jacques Bochetel de la Forest or de La Forêt (died 1595) was a French politician, treasurer of the household to Francis II of France, and ambassador at the court of Elizabeth I.
Family
He was a son of Guillaume Bochetel (died 1558) and Marie de Morvilliers de la Sourdière. Guillaume Bochetel was an administrator of royal finance and ambassador to England in 1535, attending a meeting at Calais to discuss a marriage between the infant Princess Elizabeth and Charles de Valois.
Jacques Bochetel and his brothers and sisters were thought to be Protestants or Protestant sympathisers. His sister Catherine married Antoine Vulcob, sieur de Coudron. Her son, his nephew, Jacob or Jean de Vulcob, sieur de Sassy, was identified as a Huguenot who joined him in London in 1566, and remained in diplomatic contact with the English court. In September 1566 Jean Vulcob was at Burghley House and discussed the possibility of Elizabeth I marrying the Earl of Leicester, and, with Elizabeth's physician, the idea of her marrying Charles IX of France.
The family home was the Château de Breulhamenon or Brouillamnon at Plou, Cher, later renamed Château de Castelnau. The Renaissance château was demolished, but a 3D paper model made in the 18th-century survives in the Cher archives.
