Louise of Savoy, Regent of France

1476-1531, Countess of Angouleme, Duchess (and active ruler) of Auvergne and Anjou, Regent of France

You might recognize her name, as I mentioned that she was raised by Anne of Beaujeu.

Louise of Savoy was a politically shrewd and savvy woman, and a lover of culture.  She was the daughter of the duke of Savoy (an area of Italy) and at eleven was married to the Count of Angouleme (an area of France), who was a cousin of the French king Louis XII.  Although he had two mistresses and managed to have three illegitimate children during their marriage, Louise was friends with both other women and brought their children up with her own.  Louise had two children, but her husband died only eight years after their marriage.

As a rich young widow Louise was able to negotiate her children's marriages on her own.  She became close to the king, who only had daughters, and during his final illness he named Louise's son Francois as his successor.  Although this was legitimate by blood anyway, the king gave his daughter in marriage to Francois to cement the succession.  Now Louise was the mother of the new king.  Her son then made her duchess of Angouleme, her late husband's area, and Anjou in her own right.

Francois was fond of going off to war, and when he was absent Louise was his regent.  Usually this was about a year at a time, but there was a longer period when he was prisoner in Spain when she continued to rule.  Louise appears to have been a skilled diplomat, although was somewhat unlucky.  She tried to make friendly overtures to the Ottoman Turks in 1524 but the messengers got lost; in the same year she tried to negotiate for peace with the English, but Henry VIII's Cardinal Wolsey did not want to negotiate with her.  However, she was able to make a peace treaty with the Holy Roman Empire over the second Italian War and also ally with the Ottomans to free her son from captivity.

While not acting as regent, Louise fought the Duke of Bourbon (who held that title by marriage and his wife had died) for her blood right to Auvergne and some other areas he was trying to hold - she was a direct descendent of the ruling family there while he had it due to his marriage.  He initially refused so she set in motion a successful plan to undermine his authority and power, and eventually goaded him into a minor war with her son.  His properties were confiscated and she took them.

Aside from the politics, Louise is also known to have been a huge lover of the Italian Renaissance.  This time period was the height of its development in art and science, and she kept current with the literature, both philosophical and scientific, coming from there.  She also made sure her children were taught in the new ways of the Renaissance and commissioned books for them.  Her patronage helped spread the Renaissance in France.

I knew very little about Louise of Savoy before reading up on her for this, and I'm most impressed by her diplomacy and arts patronage.  She was very powerful for her time, but used it wisely and subtlety.  It takes a shrewd mind to have maneuvered her son into place to become king and then have gotten a number of lands for herself.  Some people would probably call her too politically ambitious, but campaigns such as hers were regularly carried out by men for centuries, so I don't think she can be criticized for that.