Thomas Francis of Savoy, 1st Prince of Carignano (; ; 21 December 1596 – 22 January 1656) was an Italian military commander and the founder of the Carignano branch of the House of Savoy, which reigned as kings of Piedmont-Sardinia from 1831 to 1861, and as kings of Italy from 1861 until the dynasty's deposition in 1946.
Background
Born in Turin, Thomas was the youngest of the five legitimate sons of the sovereign Duke Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy by his consort Caterina Micaela of Austria, a daughter of King Philip II of Spain and the French princess Elisabeth of France. His mother died the following year. While still a young man, Thomas bore arms in the service of the king of Spain in Italy.
Although in previous reigns, younger sons had been granted rich appanages in Switzerland (Genevois, Vaud), Italy (Aosta), or France (Nemours, Bresse), the Savoy dukes found that this inhibited their own aggrandizement while encouraging intra-dynastic strife and regional secession. Not only did Thomas have older brothers, he was but one of the twenty-one acknowledged children of Charles Emmanuel. While only nine of these were legitimate, the others, being the widowed duke's offspring by noble mistresses, appear to have been generously endowed or dowered during their father's lifetime.
The fief of Carignano had belonged to the Savoys since 1418, and the fact that it was part of Piedmont, only twenty km. south of Turin, meant that it could be a "princedom" for Thomas in name only, being endowed neither with independence nor revenues of substance. Instead of receiving a significant patrimony, Thomas was wed in 1625 to Marie de Bourbon; she was sister to and co-heiress with Louis, Count of Soissons, who would be killed in 1641 while fomenting rebellion against Cardinal Richelieu.
France
In anticipation of this inheritance Thomas and Marie did not establish themselves at his brother's capital, Turin, but dwelt in Paris, where Marie enjoyed the exalted rank of a princess du sang, being a second cousin of King Louis XIII. It was arranged that Thomas, as son of a reigning monarch, would hold the rank of first among the princes étrangers at the French court—taking precedence even before the formerly all-powerful House of Guise, whose kinship to the sovereign Duke of Lorraine was more remote. He was appointed Grand Maître of the king's household, briefly replacing the traitorous Grand Condé. He engaged the services of the distinguished grammarian and courtier Claude Favre de Vaugelas as tutor for his children.
The prospect of Marie's eventual succession to the Swiss principality of Neuchâtel, near Savoy, was foiled in 1643 by the king's decision to legitimate Louis Henri de Bourbon, chevalier de Soissons (1640–1703), a son of Marie's late brother. This prevented the substitution of Savoyard for French influence in that region, but left Thomas with little more than the empty title of "prince de Carignano". Marie did eventually inherit her brother's main holding in France, the county of Soissons, but this would be established as a secundogeniture for the French branch of the family. After Thomas, the senior branch of his descendants repatriated to Savoy, alternately marrying French, Italian and German princesses.
Public career
Early actions and service with Spain
Thomas' first recorded service is as a commander in the Piedmontese army under his father in the war against France in 1630 (see War of the Mantuan Succession). It was probably around this time that he first encountered Mazarin, who (though his public position was quite complex) was during 1630-32 in effect a French agent at the Piedmontese court. When the new Duke Victor Amadeus I was forced to accept a French occupation of Pinerolo (Peace of Cherasco, 26 April 1631, and associated secret agreements, implemented 1632), there was widespread dissatisfaction in Piedmont, and Thomas, with his brother Maurice, went to join the Spanish, at which Victor Amadeus confiscated their revenues. (The exact date of the move is unstated, but was probably 1632, certainly no later than 1634.) Though welcomed by the Spanish given that he was related to both the French and Spanish royal families, Thomas was not entirely trusted by them, and had to send his wife and children to Madrid as hostages.