Gilbert, Count of Montpensier
Gilbert de Bourbon, Count of Montpensier, was a member of the House of Bourbon. He was the son of Louis I, Count of Montpensier and Gabrielle de La Tour d'Auvergne, Count of Montpensier and Dauphin d'Auvergne. He was appointed to the Order of Saint Michael by King Charles VIII of France in October 1483.
Life
Gilbert was the first person, after a number of divisions of Auvergne in the Middle Ages, to carry the bloodlines of the respective dynasties of each of the three main divisions of Auvergne, the countship, the dukedom and the dauphinate.His paternal grandmother Marie of Berry, Duchess of Bourbon, was heiress to the duchy of Auvergne. The creation for the Berry and Bourbon branches was made of lands that were confiscated from the count of Auvergne by Philip II of France. His paternal great-grandmother Anne of Auvergne was daughter of the Dauphin of Auvergne and after the extinction of her brother's line, in her issue the heiress thereof. Though Gilbert was by no means the primogenitural heir to any of them, as head of the cadet branch of his family, he received Montpensier and the dauphinate as appanages inside the extended family.
Marriage and issue
On 24 February 1482 Gilbert married Clara Gonzaga, daughter of Federico I of Gonzaga of Mantua; they had the following issue:- Louise, Duchess of Montpensier, eventually the heiress of all the Bourbon estates, but not titles
- Louis II, Count of Montpensier
- Charles III, Duke of Bourbon,
- François, Duke of Châtellerault
- Renée, Lady of Mercœur, married on 26 June 1515 at the Château d'Amboise to Antoine, Duke of Lorraine
- Anne