He was the first son of Honoré d'Albert, seigneur de Luynes, who was in the service of the three last Valois kings and of Henry IV of France. Charles was brought up at court and attended the dauphin, later Louis XIII. The king shared his fondness for hunting and rapidly advanced him in favour. In 1615 he was appointed commander of the Louvre Palace and counsellor, and the following year Grand Falconer of France. He used his influence over the king in the court intrigues against the queen-mother Marie de' Medici and her favourite Concini. It was Luynes who, with Vitry, captain of the guard, arranged the plot that ended in Concini's assassination and secured all the latter's possessions in Italy and France. In the same year he was appointed captain of the Bastille and lieutenant-general of Normandy, and married Marie de Rohan, daughter of the Duke of Montbazon. He employed extreme measures against the pamphleteers of the time, but sought peace in Italy and with the Protestants. In August 1619 he negotiated the Treaty of Angoulême by which Marie de' Medici was accorded complete liberty. The same month he was made governor of Picardy and Duke of Luynes. He had recently purchased the Comté de Maillé on the Loire, about 10 miles west of Tours, and the king erected Maillé into the Duchy of Luynes, which included about 50 parishes and extended to the western wall of Tours and around it on three sides. On 14 November he was officially received as a duke and a Peer of France at a ceremony in the great hall of the Parlement of Paris. His rapid rise to power made him a host of enemies, who looked upon him as but a second Concini. He suppressed an uprising of nobles in 1620. In 1621, at the king's request, Luynes agreed to lead an expedition against the Protestants in the southwest, even though Luynes had for a long time been opposed to the campaign. As part of the agreement, Louis appointed him Constable of France, even though Luynes had slight military ability or achievement. He was sworn in on 2 April. Luynes received the post in part by default: the obvious choice, the Duke of Lesdiguières, was a Protestant and refused to abjure. Later, after Luynes's death, Lesdiguières converted and became constable. Luynes was involved in the failure of the Siege of Montauban, for which he received much criticism, although he had not been the field commander. On 15 December 1621, in the midst of the campaign, Luynes died of scarlet fever, aged 43, at Château de Longueville in Guienne.
