JEANNE D'ALBRET, QUEEN OF NAVARRE / JEHANNE DE NAVARRE (1528-1572)

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"THESE, MADAME, ARE THE... REASONS... I HAVE TAKEN TO ARMS."
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Jeanne was the daughter of Henry d'Albret and Marguerite de Navarre, king and queen of Navarre, a small but important buffer state between France and Spain, whose rulers owed fealty to the French crown. Her education was supervised by humanist reformers appointed by her mother. When she was 12, her uncle, King Francis I of France, had her married to a political ally, the Duke of Cleves --- over Jeanne's strongly expressed objections. Four years later the marriage was annulled; her husband had ceased to be profitable to Francis.

In 1547, Francis I died; in the next year his successor had the now 20-year-old Jeanne married to Antoine de Bourbon, "first prince of the blood," and so heir to the French throne if no legitimate sons were available to succeed the Valois king. This was as much a political marriage as the first, but Jeanne seems to have approved of the choice. Five children were born by 1559, although only two survived infancy.

The couple lived quietly until 1555, when Jeanne's father died and they became rulers of Navarre and Bearn, with control over much of Gascony and Guyenne. The southwest of France had become a refuge for French Calvinists --- called "Huguenots" --- and fertile ground for preachers from Geneva. Jeanne had already supported religious reformers, as her mother had before her, and she began to become more active in Bearn. Antoine's interest in reform is less certain; he seems to have chosen whatever side promised more political benefit.

In 1560, Jeanne publicly announced her adherence to Calvinist belief; because of her rank she became one of the leaders of the Huguenot party. At the same time, a 10-year-old Charles IX had just been crowned king of France, and the nobles --- Protestant and Catholic --- were vying to see who would control him. Although Catherine de Medici, Charles' mother, tried to balance the opposing sides, the first of a series of civil wars began while Jeanne and Antoine were at the French court in 1562. Antoine declared for the Catholics and sent Jeanne home, but he kept their 9-year-old son Henry at court --- ostensibly for his education, in effect as a hostage.

Within a year, Antoine had died of battle wounds, and Jeanne was now sole ruler of her lands in the southwest, with Henry "first prince of the blood." Jeanne immediately made Calvinism the state religion of Bearn and began to put Navarre and her other territories under Calvinist civil and military control. This brought threats from Spain and Rome, which in turn brought some conciliation from Catherine, who opposed what Jeanne was doing but opposed even more any outside intervention into French matters. In 1567, Jeanne was allowed to take Henry, now 14, away from the court and home to Bearn.

Later that year war began again. Huguenots captured the city of La Rochelle and fortified it as a permanent base. In 1568, Catholic nobles in Jeanne's lands revolted, and Bearn was threatened by both French and Spanish forces. Jeanne took her two children and went to La Rochelle, where she was involved both in military planning and in raising money for ships and arms. A year later, Catherine began peace negotiations with Jeanne, but fighting continued; in 1570 a peace was concluded and official talks began on a marriage between Henry and Catherine's youngest daughter, Marguerite de Valois.

With her lands restored, Jeanne returned to Bearn to establish an even more thoroughly Calvinist state. At the start of 1572, she went to the French court to arrange Henry's marriage. She hoped he would be a future Protestant king of France; in case that didn't come about, she wanted him to be given all of Guyenne as a dukedom, so that there would be at least one area within France to provide a Protestant refuge. By April an agreement for the marriage had been made (but with no dukedom). Jeanne accepted it because she saw it as the best hope for Henry and for the Protestant cause. She died two months before the wedding and the massacre of Huguenots that followed it.

The writings published during Jeanne's life span most of her active political career, from 1563 to 1571. Their purpose was to encourage the Protestant faithful and to exhort the undecided to join her in the cause. An exchange of letters between Jeanne and a Catholic cardinal were printed in Bearn in 1563. Four letters that she wrote to the royal family on her 1568 trip from Bearn to La Rochelle and one written later to Elizabeth I of England were published as Lettres de tres haute tres vertueuse & tres chrestienne Princess Jane Royne de Navarre. In 1570 was published Ample declaration sur la jonction de ses armes des Reformes en 1568, Jeanne's justification for having left Bearn to join the army at La Rochelle. Finally, in 1571 the Ordonnance Ecclesiastiques de la Reine de Navarre was printed, for the use of other Protestant rulers.

It wouldn't be accurate to call Jeanne's other letters private; as a ruler, she knew that they would be read by many and eventually archived. But the letters do show a more human side than the polemical printed works. They reveal a strong-willed woman who was aware of her own deficiencies, especially the difficulty she had in controlling impatience with those who disagreed with her.

There is no complete English translation of her writing, but there is enough available to let us know something of one of the few reigning queens of the period.