Character Sketch on Jeanne d'Albret, Part 1

I haven't posted anything for so long, today I just realized it! Sorry!
I don't really have anything to post on ( yet! ), so I'll just put a character sketch that I did a few weeks ago:

                   Jeanne D' Albret

        7 January 1528- 9 June 1572

Jeanne D' Albret was born on  7 January 1528, the only child of Marguerite of Angouleme and Henry of Navarre.

 Marguerite was the sister of Francis I, King of France. Prominent not only at the court, but throughout Europe, she "occupied an influential position in the intellectual movement of the day" by speaking out against the abuses of Roman Catholicism. "Marguerite was intensely interested in humanistic studies, was deeply religious, was strongly impressed by Luther and Calvin... [but] while dissenting from much in the Roman Catholic Church, never became a Protestant." In Bearn she granted asylum to Protestants persecuted in France, and on more than one occasion used her influence with her brother to keep them from harm.

Her father, Henry d' Albret, Vicomte de Bearn, King of Navarre, held the small kingdom of Bearn near the Spanish border. Although the family called themselves "kings" of Navarre, "only the little bit of that kingdom remained in their hands since Ferdinand of Aragon had conquered the larger portion to the south in 1512." Henry was always working to regain this lost territory. He was an extremely well liked ruler, forthright, equitable, skillfully handling the grievances of his subjects.

Little is known about Jeanne's childhood, but we do know that when she was moved closer to court at the age of 9, her father was trying to restore the Spanish part of Navarre, so he was seeking a marriage between Jeanne and the King of Spain's son, Phillip. But her uncle, Frances, wanted to use her for his own gain. When Jeanne was 12, Francis made a marriage contract between her and Germany's Duke of Cleves. And it is in this betrothal that the strength of Jeanne's will first (historically) is shown. Even after her parents  agreed with the king, she strongly disagreed, so much so, that her mother had to have her whipped into obedience. But even then, she wrote two protests, witnessed and signed by two people, but to no avail. On her wedding day, she refused to walk down the aisle, and had to be carried to the altar.   This political marriage was annulled four years later with papal approval.

 Three years later Jeanne was again the pawn in a political alliance. Her father was again seeking a compact between her and the Spanish Prince Philip, but again, the King of France, now Henry II, the son of Francis I , had other plans. To help consolidate the territories in the north and south of France, Jeanne was wed in 1549 to Antoine de Bourbon, Duke de Vendome, First Prince of the Blood.

The couple had five children, of whom only two, Henry, king of France (1589 to 1610) and king of Navarre (1572 to 1610); and Catherine, duchess of Lorraine, lived to adulthood.

Jeanne was influenced by her mother, who died in 1549, with leanings toward religious reform. This legacy was influential in her decision to convert from Catholicism to Christianity. In the first year of her reign, Queen Jeanne called a conference of Protestant Huguenot ministers. While still officially Roman Catholic, Antoine and Jeanne attended sermons preached by the ministers of Geneva. Upon visiting Bearn, one such minister reported to Calvin, "Preaching is open -- in public. The streets resound to the chanting of the Psalms. Religious books are sold as freely and openly at home." She later declared Calvinism the official religion of her kingdom after publicly embracing the teachings of John Calvin on Christmas Day 1560. This conversion made her the highest-ranking Protestant in France.  Once she had made a public profession,  Jeanne never looked back. "For the remaining twelve years of her life she would be singled out as an enemy by the most powerful movement in Europe, the Counter Reformation." .

Following the imposition of Calvinism in her kingdom, Roman Catholicism was abolished. She commissioned the translation of the New Testament into Basque and Béarnese, the languages of Navarre, for the benefit of her subjects.

The power struggle between Catholics and Huguenots for control of the French court and France as a whole, led to the outbreak of the French Wars of Religion in 1562. Antoine and Jeanne were at the French Court in Paris when Antoine at last sided with the Roman Catholics. Jeanne, however, could not be dissuaded. Her conversion had been motivated by neither politics nor fashion, and she would not bend. The strength of her will, this time put into service for God, was unflinching. While others went back to the Mass, Jeanne had Protestant services in her apartments "with all the doors open" as exasperated observers pointed out. Others followed Antoine's lead, but Jeanne called to him to remember the true teaching they had received. Antoine demanded that she go to Mass, but Jeanne flatly refused. "When the Queen Mother, Catherine De Medici, tried to persuade her to obey her husband, she finally replied, rather than ever go to Mass, if she held her kingdom and her son in her hand, she would throw them both to the bottom of the sea. This was the reason they then left her in peace on the matter." When many of the other nobles also joined the Catholic camp, Catherine had no choice but to support them. Fearing both her husband's and Catherine's anger, Jeanne left Paris in March 1562 and made her way south to seek refuge in Bearn, leaving her 8-year-old son Henry behind.

I'm just going to leave it there for now! In part two I'll put my sources.