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Jeanne d'Albret (Occitan: Joana de Labrit; Basque: Joana Albretekoa), also known as Jeanne III, was the queen regnant of Navarre from 1555 to 1572. She married Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme, and was the mother of Henry of Bourbon, who became King Henry III of Navarre and IV of France, the first Bourbon king of France. She became the Duchess of Vendôme by marriage.
Jeanne was the acknowledged spiritual and political leader of the French Huguenot movement, and a key figure in the French Wars of Religion. After her her public conversion to Calvinism in 1560, she joined the Huguenot forces. During the first and second war she remained relatively neutral, but in the third war she fled to La Rochelle, becoming the de facto leader. After negotiating a peace treaty with Catherine de' Medici and arranging the marriage of her son, Henry, to Catherine's daughter, Marguerite, she died suddenly in Paris.
Jeanne was the last active ruler of Navarre. Her son inherited her kingdom, but as he was constantly leading the Huguenot forces, he entrusted the government of Béarn to his sister, Catherine de Bourbon, who held the regency for more than two decades. In 1620, Jeanne's grandson Louis XIII annexed Navarre to the French crown. |
