Elisabeth von Brandenburg, Elisabeth von Braunschweig, Marguerite de Navarre,
Jeanne d'Albret, and Renee de France used their political and social status to support the Reformation both publicly and privately in their territories.
Only in Beam, as explained in chapter 10, were Catholic efforts thwarted by the powerful Protestant influence of the Calvinst queen of Navarre,
Jeanne d'Albret.
For
Jeanne d'Albret and her subjects, La Judit thus carried a message of solidarity and rebellion.
For example, the authors challenge the image of Marguerite as a cold, distant mother that Nancy Roelker conveyed in her biography of
Jeanne d'Albret.
THE Huguenot poet Guillaume Salluste du Bartas (1544-1590) wrote his epic La Judit at the request of his patroness
Jeanne d'Albret who commanded a poem about Judith sometime in the mid-1560's.
The author owes much to Henri d'Albret - husband to Marguerite d'Angouleme, father of
Jeanne d'Albret, and grandfather of Henry IV - for the system of record-keeping he installed at Pau, which permitted her to undertake this detailed study of the family's finances from 1520 to 1600.
For English-language readers, this book provides one of the few opportunities to understand Marguerite, her relationship to her brother Francis and her two husbands, and the estranged relationship with her daughter,
Jeanne d'Albret, who would later become the Calvinist Queen of Navarre.
1555,
Jeanne d'Albret, la fille de Marguerite, annonce sa decision
In fact, to glorify her in terms of dynasty and Providential will through schemes of representation comparable to those elaborated for her mother and brother might jeopardize the unity of the Crown by lending authority to a husband, and to their children, and thus producing potential rivals for the throne (indeed, these politics were played out dramatically in the subsequent generation, as the marriage of Marguerite's daughter,
Jeanne d'Albret, sparked a violent struggle between the young princess, Marguerite, Henri de Navarre and Francois).
This innovative and scholarly book about
Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre and mother of Henri IV, is not a biography in the usual sense but concentrates on two issues that the author claims are neglected in the late Nancy Lyman Roelker's Queen of Navarre:
Jeanne d'Albret, 1528-1572 (1968) -- rather slightingly described as "a psychological interpretation" (69).
The memoirs discussed include those of De Thou (the only author writing in Latin), Marguerite de Valois, Tavannes,
Jeanne d'Albret, Cheverny, the Duc de Bouillon, Henri de Mesmes, the Duc d'Angouleme, Saint-Auban and the Du Bellay brothers.
Despite its title, Eurich's study traces the fortunes of the house of Foix-Navarre-Albret over the course of the entire sixteenth century, from the career of Henri d'Albret, husband of Marguerite d'Angouleme, the sister of Francois I, through that of their daughter,
Jeanne d'Albret, and finally that of their grandson Henri de Navarre, later Henri IV.
