Grand Chamberlain of France in the context of Louis I of Navarre

The Constable of France (French: Connétable de France, from Latin comes stabuli for 'count of the stables') was lieutenant to the King of France, the first of the original five Great Officers of the Crown (along with seneschal, chamberlain, butler, and chancellor) and the commander-in-chief of the Royal Army. He was, at least on paper, the highest-ranking member of the French nobility.

The Connétable de France was also responsible for military justice and served to regulate the Chivalry. His jurisdiction was called the Constabulary (connestablie; or in modern French orthography which sticks closer to the correct pronunciation: connétablie).

Enguerrand de Marigny, Baron Le Portier (c. 1260 – 30 April 1315) was a French chamberlain and minister of Philip IV.

Mary of Guise (French: Marie de Guise; 22 November 1515 – 11 June 1560), also called Mary of Lorraine, was Queen of Scotland from 1538 until 1542, as the second wife of King James V. She was a French noblewoman of the House of Guise, a cadet branch of the House of Lorraine and one of the most powerful families in France. As the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, she was a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that marked mid-16th-century Scotland, ruling the kingdom as queen regent on behalf of her daughter from 1554 until her death in 1560.

The eldest of the twelve children born to Claude, Duke of Guise, and Antoinette of Bourbon, in 1534 Mary was married to Louis II d'Orléans, Duke of Longueville, the Grand Chamberlain of France. The marriage was arranged by King Francis I of France, but proved shortlived. The Duke of Longueville died in 1537, and the widower kings of England and Scotland, Henry VIII and James V, both sought the Duchess of Longueville's hand. After much persuasion from Francis I and James V, who wrote a personal letter pleading for her hand and counsel, Mary eventually relented and agreed to marry the King of Scots. Following the new queen's arrival in Scotland, James and Mary were married in person in June 1538 at St Andrews Cathedral. Mary was crowned queen at Holyrood Abbey on 22 February 1540, and the marriage produced three children in quick succession: James, Duke of Rothesay; Robert, Duke of Albany; and Mary. Both sons died in April 1541, just 14 hours apart, and when James V himself died in December 1542, his only surviving heir, Mary, became Queen of Scots at the age of six days old.

Louis X (4 October 1289 – 5 June 1316), known as the Quarrelsome (French: le Hutin), was King of France from 1314 and King of Navarre (as Louis I) from 1305 until his death. He emancipated serfs who could buy their freedom and readmitted Jews into the kingdom. His short reign in France was marked by tensions with the nobility, due to fiscal and centralisation reforms initiated during the reign of his father by Grand Chamberlain Enguerrand de Marigny.

Louis' first wife, Margaret, was implicated in the Tour de Nesle affair. She was found guilty of infidelity and imprisoned until her death in August 1315. Louis married Clémence of Hungary the same year, but the king died in 1316 leaving his wife pregnant. Queen Clémence gave birth to a boy, who was proclaimed king as John I, but the infant lived only five days. Louis' brother Philip, Count of Poitiers, succeeded John to become Philip V of France.

Gilles de Rais, Baron de Rais (French: [ʒil də ʁɛ]; also spelled "Retz"; c. 1405 – 26 October 1440) was a French knight and lord from Brittany, Anjou and Poitou, a leader in the French army during the Hundred Years' War, and a companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc. He remains chiefly known for his conviction on charges of the rape and murder of several children.

An important lord as heir to some great noble lineages of western France, he rallied to the cause of King Charles VII of France and waged war against the English. In 1429, he formed an alliance with his cousin Georges de La Trémoille, the prominent Grand Chamberlain of France, and was appointed Marshal of France the same year, after the successful military campaigns alongside Joan of Arc. Little is known about his relationship with her, unlike the privileged association between the two comrades in arms portrayed by various fictions. He gradually withdrew from the war during the 1430s. His family accused him of squandering his patrimony by selling off his lands to the highest bidder to offset his lavish expenses, a profligacy that led to his being placed under interdict by Charles VII in July 1435. He assaulted a high-ranking cleric in the church of Saint-Étienne-de-Mer-Morte before seizing the local castle in May 1440, thereby violating ecclesiastical immunities and undermining the majesty of his suzerain, John V, Duke of Brittany. Arrested on 15 September 1440 at his castle in Machecoul, he was brought to the Duchy of Brittany, an independent principality where he was tried in October 1440 by an ecclesiastical court assisted by the Inquisition for heresy, sodomy and the murder of "one hundred and forty or more children." At the same time, he was tried and condemned by the secular judges of the ducal court of justice to be hanged and burned at the stake for his act of force at Saint-Étienne-de-Mer-Morte, as well as for crimes committed against "several small children." On 26 October 1440, he was sent to the scaffold with two of his servants convicted of murder.