Would they not rather have poisoned me at my meals, or with the fumes of wax, as they did my ancestress,
Jeanne d'Albret?" Suddenly, the chill of the dungeons seemed to fall like a wet cloak upon Louis's shoulders.
and trans.,
Jeanne d'Albret: Letters from the Queen of Navarre with an Ample Declaration (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: Toronto Series, 43; Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 490), Tempe, ACMRS, 2016; paperback; pp.
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. Even there, however, Gould shows that militant Catholics worked actively, sometimes with Philip II of Spain, to try to oust the Protestant leader.
In the "Avertissement au lecteur" of his poem La Judit, the Huguenot poet Guillaume Salluste Du Bartas states that he chose to write about the biblical figure Judith because he was asked to do so by
Jeanne d'Albret, "ayant este commande, il y a environ quatorze ans, par feu tres illustre et tres vertueus Princesse Jane, royne de Navarre, de rediger l'histoire de Judit en forme d'un poeme epique ..." (1) At the same time that he wrote an epic poem for his patroness, Du Bartas wrote for her subjects in the sovereign territories she controlled in southwest France.
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. Examining the circumstances surrounding Jeanne's forced marriage to the Duke of Cleves, imposed by Francois in 1541, they offer an alternate script, one that shows Marguerite as a master strategist and protective mother.
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.
Finally, Eurich examines the huge sums that
Jeanne d'Albret and, far more so, her son spent directly on the religious wars.
Born at Pau in Bearn (December 14, 1553), the son of Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendome, and
Jeanne d'Albret; called the Prince of Bearn until his mother's death; educated as a Catholic in Paris (1561-1564), he was raised a Protestant after he rejoined his mother (1564); served under Gaspard de Coligny during the Third Huguenot War (1568-1570); distinguished himself at Arnay-le-Duc in Burgundy (May?
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).
