Marguerite of Angouleme, Queen of Navarre

1492-1549, Queen of Navarre and Duchess of Alencon

Unlike many of the women featured here, Marguerite's significance is less political and much more on a personal and cultural level.

Marguerite was the daughter of Louise of Savoy and the count of Angouleme.  Her father died when she was quite young, and as I described before, her mother took complete control over running their lands and was quite independent.  Louise fostered a love of Renaissance literature, philosophy, and art in her children, and they turned out to be the two central figures of the French Renaissance.

Marguerite was possibly the most educated woman of her time, as Louise of Savoy's daughter and the sister of the heir to the French throne.  She learned Latin, Italian, and Spanish, and was able to read all the newest publications, and later in life published her own works, some of which are still viewed as pillars of Renaissance and Reformation philosophy.  However, she was still a princess and therefore had to marry for political purposes.

First the king married her to the duke of Alencon, to keep his territory in the royal family.  The duke was kind but reputed to be very unintelligent, and functionally illiterate.  It was a marriage of convenience and they had no children.  Next she married the king of Navarre, a small kingdom wedged between France and Spain (roughly the modern day Basque region).  The Spanish had been giving Navarre trouble, so this marriage was cementing an alliance between France and Navarre.

This marriage was much happier, and Marguerite was allowed to play roles in governance and diplomacy.  When her brother, the king, was captured in Spain she personally rode twelve hours a day in winter weather to meet a diplomatic deadline to free him.  Stories say she used to walk through the streets of Navarrese cities alone, inviting people to come walk and talk with her, listening to their troubles, giving advice, and taking queries back to the king.

Even more important than this, however, was Marguerite's role in both patronizing Renaissance philosophers and artists, and actively writing herself.  You might remember, for example, my trip to Amboise, specifically the Clos Luce.  Marguerite and her brother were brought up here by their mother, and even in their childhood it was a center for artists and philosophers to congregate.  Later in their lives, Marguerite still lived there a lot of the year, and it was her brother, the king's, main residence.  They invited Leonardo da Vinci to come live there with them towards the end of his life, and sponsored him and many of his colleagues to come talk and debate there.  It was truly the center of the whole French Renaissance, and Marguerite was the organizer and moderator of everything that happened there.

Marguerite herself was not a Protestant, but she strongly favored major reforms in the Catholic Church - which at this period was overcome with corruption.  She patronized Protestant-leaning writers such as Francois Rabelais, and she herself actually wrote one of the most significant pieces of the the early Reformation.  After the death of her only son she wrote a theological poem, "Mirror of the Sinful Soul."  In a very interesting intellectual progression, it's very likely that Anne Boleyn, the famously beheaded and Protestant second wife of King Henry VIII of England, was at Marguerite's court and was influenced by the radical piece.  Her daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, also Protestant, is known to have cherished the poem and recited it to her secretly Protestant, very influential and intelligent stepmother, Henry's last wife Katherine Parr.  Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I, and Katherine Parr are easily the most important women of the whole Reformation movement, and it's likely that all of them were influenced by Marguerite's writing.

Marguerite was a truly remarkable woman of her time: a "Renaissance woman" quite literally, a good diplomat, intelligent, kind, and artistic.  She held an amount of cultural power that was nearly unheard of for a woman with her little political influence, and allowed geniuses like da Vinci to thrive under her watch.  It's safe to say that the world of culture is a far better place today because of her life.

(Also, for those who follow this series, continue to note the political, personal, and intellectual connections that are ongoing amongst the last few woman: Anne of Beaujeu, Louise of Savoy, Anne of Brittany, Marguerite, and the next one, her daughter Jeanne d'Albret.)

Have a Happy Halloween!