Jeanne D'Albret
(1528-1572)

Died aged 43

Jeanne d'Albret (Basque: Joana Albretekoa; Occitan: Joana de Labrit; 16 November 1528 – 9 June 1572), also known as Jeanne III, was the queen regnant of Navarre from 1555 to 1572. She married Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme, becoming the Duchess of Vendôme and was the mother of Henri de Bourbon, who became King Henry III of Navarre and IV of France, the first Bourbon king of France. Jeanne was the acknowledged spiritual and political leader of the French Huguenot movement, and a key figure in the French Wars of Religion. After her public conversion to Calvinism in 1560, she joined the Huguenot side. During the first and second war she remained relatively neutral, but in the third war she fled to La Rochelle, becoming the de facto leader of the Huguenot-controlled city. After negotiating a peace treaty with Catherine de' Medici and arranging the marriage of her son, Henry, to Catherine's daughter, Marguerite de Valois, she died suddenly in Paris. Jeanne was the last active ruler of Navarre. Her son inherited her kingdom, but as he was constantly leading the Huguenot forces, he entrusted the government of Béarn to his sister, Catherine de Bourbon, who held the regency for more than two decades. In 1620, Jeanne's grandson Louis XIII annexed Navarre to the French crown.

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