Today, I'm delighted to welcome Heather Darsie to my blog, the author of a new biography of Annea of Cleves, recently published by Amberley. Heather has written a piece on Jeanne d'Albret, a woman close to my own heart, which I know you'll enjoy reading.
Anna of
Cleves’ Navarrese Sister-in-Law
By Heather R.
Darsie
Jeanne d’Albret was born on 16 November 1528 to
Marguerite d’Angoulême and Henri II of Navarre at the Parisian Saint
Germain-en-Laye palace. Henri was Marguerite’s second husband. Marguerite had
two children with Henri, but only Jeanne survived. Jeanne was the niece of the
French king, Francois I, who dearly loved his elder sister Marguerite. Early on
in her life, Jeanne became a pawn in the marriage market.
Jeanne was first betrothed to the Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V’s son, the future Philip II of Spain. Navarre was on the Spanish
border, and wedding Jeanne to Philip would guarantee the consolidation of
Navarre into Spain. Despite negotiations and bruits of a match between Jeanne
and Philip during the earliest years of her life, this idea came to naught.
Marguerite was vehemently against wedding Jeanne to Philip and must have felt
some relief when the idea became moot.
By the late 1530s, Anna of Cleves’ younger brother
Wilhelm became the Duke of Guelders and the Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg. He
desperately wished to extend his power and so looked for a French or an
Imperial bride. His attentions were on Christina of Denmark throughout 1538 to
around 1540 before turning to a bride aligned with the French royal family.
After striking up a friendly diplomatic relationship with Francis I, marriage
negotiations began. After Francis determined against wedding any of his
daughters to Wilhelm, his niece Jeanne d’Albret was settled upon.
Wilhelm was eleven years older than Jeanne. Their
wedding took place in June 1541, when Wilhelm was twenty-four and Jeanne just
shy of thirteen. The wedding itself was a gorgeous affair. After symbolically
consummating the marriage with the very young Jeanne, Wilhelm left for his home
in Jülich-Cleves-Berg. Jeanne remained in the care of her mother Marguerite. Jeanne
was very much against her marriage to Wilhelm, to the point where she created
two documents protesting the match which she had witnessed and notarized before
the wedding. This, from a girl of twelve. Her willfulness and boldness would
become her greatest assets later on in life.
Jeanne would never live in Jülich-Cleves-Berg, much to
her relief. Jeanne loathed the idea of being reduced to a petty German
princess. Jeanne’s marriage to Wilhelm was annulled in 1545 on the grounds of
non-consummation and because of the official protests she crafted just before
the wedding. Jeanne did not marry again until after the death of her uncle
Francis I in March 1547. Henri II became King of France and married off his
cousin Jeanne fairly quickly. On 20 October 1548, Jeanne married Antoine de
Bourbon. The couple had five children, with only two surviving to adulthood.
By marrying Antoine de Bourbon, Henri had stronger
control over the southern regions of France and the Kingdom of Navarre. Jeanne
and Antoine’s marriage started off as a love match, but cooled within a few
years due to Antoine’s philandering. On top of that, Jeanne and Antoine were
growing to have very different opinions when it came to religion. Although
Jeanne was raised from the age of two years at her uncle Francois I’s
Roman-Catholic court, she was still the daughter of Marguerite d’Angoulême.
Marguerite’s interest in the Reformation increased
over her lifetime. Marguerite was well-educated and she made a habit of
attracting great minds to her court. Marguerite herself was a poetess and
author. She was known to exchange correspondence with Calvinists and
Reformists, and did her best to protect them. Marguerite died in 1549.
Jeanne and her husband Antoine ruled the Kingdom of
Navarre after the death of Jeanne’s father on 25 May 1555. She was crowned in
Pau on 18 August 1555 in a Roman Catholic ceremony, along with her husband.
Jeanne declared herself a Calvinist on Christmas Day 1560, to the dismay of her
husband.
As co-monarch then monarch of Navarre, Jeanne was able
to declare Calvinism as the recognized religion of Navarre. After instituting
Calvinism, monks and nuns were banned, and Catholic churches shut down. Jeanne
was a very powerful Protestant monarch and a threat to her cousins, the kings
of France.
The French Wars of Religion broke out in 1562. Antoine
chose to support the Catholic faction. Jeanne remained a Calvinist and Antoine
threatened to disavow their marriage. The dispute between husband and wife was
resolved when Antoine died in November 1562 at the Siege of Rouen. Jeanne tried
to be at her husband’s bedside while he was dying, but could not receive the
proper safe conduct in time.
Jeanne remained mostly neutral during the first two
wars because she had to protect her country from both Spain and France. By the
time the Third War of French Religion started in 1568, Jeanne decided to
support the Huguenots. Jeanne fled to La Rochelle with her son Henri and
daughter Catherine. Jeanne made ample use of her knack for military strategy by
guiding the Protestant forces from La Rochelle. In 1569, she wrote her memoir, Ample Declaration. Jeanne was
instrumental in negotiating the Peace of Saint Germain-en-Laye in 1570, which
ended the Third War of Religion.
The Peace of Saint Germain-en-Laye included the
provision that Jeanne’s son marry Catherine de’ Medici’s daughter, a Roman
Catholic French princess. The marriage negotiations were finalized in Spring
1571, and Henri of Navarre signed a marriage contract with Marguerite de
Valois. Jeanne stayed in Paris over the rest of the spring and into early
summer, indulging in shopping and preparing for her son’s wedding.
Jeanne died on 9 June 1572, after taking to her bed
five days earlier. Her cause of death is unknown, though there is speculation
that she succumbed to tuberculosis. She was buried beside her second husband,
Antoine de Bourbon. He son Henri became the first Bourbon king when he ascended
the Throne of France in 1589.
Anna, Duchess of
Cleves: The King’s ‘Beloved Sister’ by Heather R.
Darsie is released 15 April in the UK and 1 July in the US. If you live in the
US and cannot wait until July, you can order a hardcover from the UK Amazon.
The book can be purchased here:
US Hardcover: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1445677105?pf_rd_p=1cac67ce-697a-47be-b2f5-9ae91aab54f2&pf_rd_r=3N5CGT7W6TPG1X0AF7PZ
Sources & Suggested Reading
1.
Darsie, Heather R. Anna, Duchess of Cleves: The King’s ‘Beloved Sister’. Stroud:
Amberley Publishing (2019).
2.
Roelker, Nancy Lyman. Queen of Navarre,
Jeanne DAlbret: 1528–1572. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press (1968).
3.
Holt,
Mack, ed. Renaissance and Reformation France 1500–1648. Oxford
and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
4.
Mentzer,
Raymond A., and Bertrand van Ruymbeke. A Companion to the Huguenots.
Boston and Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2016.
Look out for the rest of Heather's blog tour, which runs until 24 April:
