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Joan I (Basque: Joana I.a Nafarroakoa) the daughter of King Henry I of Navarre and Blanche of Artois, reigned as queen regnant of Navarre and also served as queen consort to Philip IV of France.
At the age of 11, Joan married the future Philip IV of France on 16 August 1284, becoming queen consort of France in 1285 a year later. Their three surviving sons would all rule as kings of France, in turn, and their only surviving daughter, Isabella became queen consort of England.
Queen Joan I of Navarre and countess of Champagne and Brie was declared to be of legal majority upon her marriage in 1284, and did homage for Champagne and Brie to her father-in-law in Paris.
Joan never visited the Kingdom of Navarre, which was ruled in her name by French governors appointed first by her father-in-law and then by her spouse in her name. The French governors were extremely unpopular in Navarre and her absence from the country was resented: however, it was the French who were blamed for her absence rather than her, and the loyalty to her right to rule was not questioned; rather, it was emphasized in Navarre that it was in fact she rather than the French who was their sovereign. From afar, edicts were issued in her name, coins struck in her image, and she gave her protection to chapels and convents. She never came closer to Navarre than to Carcasonne in 1300, and her spouse was somewhat blamed for this.
Joan died in 1305, allegedly in childbirth, though one chronicler accused her husband of having killed her. |
