Marguerite de Navarre (French: Marguerite d'Angoulême, Marguerite de Valois, or Marguerite de France) (11 April 1492 – 21 December 1549), also known as Marguerite of Angoulême and Margaret of Navarre, was the queen consort of King Henry II of Navarre. As patron of humanists and reformers, and as an author in her own right, she was an outstanding figure of the French Renaissance. Samuel Putnam called her "The First Modern Woman".
Early life and family
Marguerite was born in Angoulême on 11 April 1492, the eldest child of Charles, Count of Angoulême and Louise of Savoy. Her father was a direct descendant of Charles V, and a claimant to the crown, if both Charles VIII and the presumptive heir, Louis, Duke of Orléans, failed to produce male offspring. On 16 February 1488, Charles married eleven-year old Louise, daughter of Philip II of Savoy and Margaret of Bourbon, sister of the Duke of Beaujeu and considered one of the most brilliant feminine minds in France. Louise named her first-born "Marguerite" after her own mother.
Two years after Marguerite's birth, the family moved from Angoulême to Cognac, "where the Italian influence reigned supreme, and where Boccaccio was looked upon as a little less than a god". Marguerite's brother, Francis— later King Francis I of France—was born there on 12 September 1494.
Marguerite had several illegitimate half-siblings who were raised alongside her brother and herself. Two girls, Jeanne of Angouleme and Madeleine, were born of her father's long relationship with his châtelaine, Antoinette de Polignac, Dame de Combronde, who later became Louise's lady-in-waiting and confidante.[1] Another girl, Souveraine, was the daughter of another of her father's mistresses, Jeanne le Conte.
Her father died when she was nearly four; her year-old brother became heir presumptive to the throne of France. Thanks to her mother, who was only nineteen when she was widowed, Marguerite was tutored from her earliest childhood by excellent teachers and she even learnt Latin. The young princess was to be called "the Maecenas to the learned ones of her brother's kingdom". When Marguerite was ten, Louise tried to marry her to the Prince of Wales, later Henry VIII of England; but this was "declined with thanks".
Someone[who?] wrote of her that Marguerite needed to love more than to be loved. "Never", she wrote, "shall a man attain to the perfect love of God who has not loved to perfection some creature in this world." Perhaps the one real love in her life was Gaston de Foix, nephew of King Louis XII. But Gaston went to Italy and died a hero at Ravenna, when the French defeated Spanish and Papal forces.
First marriage
Marguerite was married at the age of seventeen to Charles IV of Alençon, aged twenty, by decree of King Louis XII (who also arranged the marriage of his ten year old daughter, Claude, to Francis). Marguerite was forced to marry a generally kind, but practically illiterate, man for political expediency—"the radiant young princess of the violet-blue eyes ... had become the bride of a laggard and a dolt". She had been bartered to save Louis' royal pride, by keeping the County of Armagnac in the family.
Statue of Marguerite of Angoulême, in front of the city hall of Angoulême
Second marriage
After the death of her first husband in 1525, Marguerite married Henry II of Navarre. (Ferdinand II of Aragon had invaded the Kingdom of Navarre in 1512, and Henry ruled only Lower Navarre.) On 7 January 1528, Marguerite bore Henry a daughter, the future Jeanne III of Navarre (mother of the future Henry IV of France).
Marguerite's most remarkable adventure involved freeing her brother, King Francis, captured in the Battle of Pavia, Italy, 1525, and held prisoner in Spain by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. (A Venetian ambassador of that time praised Marguerite as knowing all the secrets of diplomatic art, hence to be treated with deference and circumspection.) In a critical period of the negotiations, Queen Marguerite rode horseback twelve hours a day, for many days, through wintry woods, to meet a safe-conduct deadline, writing letters at night.
Her only son, Jean, was born in Blois on 7 July 1530, when Marguerite was thirty-eight, middle-aged if not already old by 16th century standards. But the child died on Christmas Day the same year. Scholars believe that her grief motivated writing her most controversial work, Miroir de l'âme pécheresse in 1531. Sorbonne theologians condemned this as heresy. A monk said Marguerite should be sewn into a sack and thrown into the Seine. Students at the Collège de Navarre satirized her in a play as "a fury from Hell". But her brother forced the dropping of the charge and an apology from the Sorbonne.
Patronage of the arts, and legacy
Marguerite became the most influential woman in France, with the exception of her mother, when her brother acceded to the crown as Francis I in 1515. Her salon became famously known as the "New Parnassus". The writer, Pierre Brantôme, said of her: "She was a great princess. But in addition to all that, she was very kind, gentle, gracious, charitable, a great dispenser of alms and friendly to all." The Dutch humanist, Erasmus, wrote to her: "For a long time I have cherished all the many excellent gifts that God bestowed upon you; prudence worthy of a philosopher; chastity; moderation; piety; an invincible strength of soul, and a marvelous contempt for all the vanities of this world. Who could keep from admiring, in a great King's sister, such qualities as these, so rare even among the priests and monks?"
Hinchliff's engraving of Marguerite of Navarre, from an 1864 English edition of the Heptaméron.
Marguerite wrote many poems and plays and the classic collection of stories, the Heptameron, as well as a remarkably intense religious poem, Miroir de l'âme pécheresse (or Mirror of the Sinful Soul). This particular poem is a first-person, mystical narrative of the soul as a yearning female calling out to Christ as her father/brother/lover. That it passed from Marguerite to the Court of England provides the basis for conjecture that Marguerite had influence on the Protestant reformation in England.
Anne Boleyn (who was, if nothing else, a catalyst for the English Reformation) was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Claude during her years in France. (This was all before Anne returned to England and became Queen to Henry VIII.) There is conjecture that the court of Queen Claude and the court of Marguerite overlapped (or even that Anne was in service to Marguerite rather than to Claude) and that Anne Boleyn became friend, admirer and/or disciple to Marguerite and took on Marguerite's radical views about Christianity. It is not merely conjecture that there exists a letter from Anne Boleyn after she became Queen with strong expressions of affection to Marguerite. It is even conjectured that Marguerite gave Anne the original manuscript of Miroir de l'âme pécheresse at some point. What is certain is that in 1545 (sometime after Anne Boleyn's execution by her husband Henry VIII), Anne's daughter, Elizabeth I (1533–1603) translated this very same poem by Marguerite into English when she was just twelve years old, and presented it, written in her own hand, to her then step-mother, the English Queen Katherine Parr. (This literary connection between Marguerite, Anne, Katherine Parr and the future Queen Elizabeth I suggests a link between the legacy of reformist religious convictions, with Marguerite as mentor.)
As a generous patron of the arts, Marguerite befriended and protected many artists and writers, among them François Rabelais (1483–1553), Clément Marot (1496–1544), and Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585); also, Marguerite was mediator between Roman Catholics and Protestants (including John Calvin). Although Marguerite espoused reform within the Catholic Church, she was not a Calvinist. She did, however, do her best to protect the Reformers and dissuaded Francis I from intolerant measures as long as she could.
After her death, six "Catholic Wars" occurred, including the terrible "St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre" of 1572. Eminent American historian Will Durant wrote: "In Marguerite the Renaissance and the Reformation were for a moment one. Her influence radiated throughout France. Every free spirit looked upon her as protectoress and ideal .... Marguerite was the embodiment of charity. She would walk unescorted in the streets of Navarre, allowing any one to approach her and would listen at first hand to the sorrows of the people. She called herself 'The Prime Minister of the Poor'. Henri, her husband, King of Navarre, believed in what she was doing, even to the extent of setting up a public works system that became a model for France. Together he and Marguerite financed the education of needy students."
Jules Michelet (1798–1874), the most celebrated historian of his time, wrote of her: "Let us always remember this tender Queen of Navarre, in whose arms our people, fleeing from prison or the pyre, found safety, honor, and friendship. Our gratitude to you, Mother of our [French] Renaissance! Your hearth was that of our saints, your heart the nest of our freedom."
Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), French philosopher and critic, whose Dictionnaire historique et critique (Historical and Critical Dictionary, 1697) greatly influenced the French Encyclopedists and the rationalist philosophers of the 18th century, such as Voltaire and Diderot, esteemed her highly, writing: "... for a queen to grant her protection to people persecuted for opinions which she believes to be false; to open a sanctuary to them; to preserve them from the flames prepared for them; to furnish them with a subsistence; liberally to relieve the troubles and inconveniences of their exile, is an heroic magnanimity which has hardly any precedent ..."
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) died while guest of Marguerite and her brother, after designing a large château for them.
In 1550, one year after Marguerite's death, a tributary poem, Annae, Margaritae, Ianae, sororum virginum heroidum Anglarum, in mortem Diuae Margaritae Valesiae, Nauarrorum Reginae, Hecatodistichon, was published in England. It was written by the nieces of Jane Seymour (1505–1537), third wife of King Henry VIII.
Family and children
Marguerite was married twice, first to Charles IV of Alençon, with whom she had no children, and secondly to Henry II of Navarre. The children of Marguerite and Henry were:
Ancestors
Marguerite de Navarre's ancestors in three generations
References
- ^ Francis Hackett, Francis The First, pages 48-52.
- Durant, Will, The Story of Civilization, v. VI, The Reformation, p. 501, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1953.
- Jourda, Pierre, Une princesse de la Renaissance, Marguerite d'Angoulême, reine de Navarre, 1492–1549, Genève, Slatkine Reprints, 1973.
- Michelet, Jules, Histoire de France, n.d., 5 v.
- Putnam, Samuel, Marguerite of Navarre, Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1936.
- Hackett, Francis, Francis The First, pages 48–52, Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1937.
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