Jeanne III's Reply to Philip II of Spain's Ambassador

His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: 

Matthew 25:21

 

"Jeanne d’Albret  also known as Jeanne III, was the queen regnant of Navarre from 1555 to 1572. She married Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme, becoming the Duchess of Vendôme and was the mother of Henri de Bourbon, who became King Henry III of Navarre and IV of France, the first Bourbon king of France.

Jeanne was strong-willed and stubborn from childhood, qualities which prepared her well to become an unflinching leader in the

Portrait of Jeanne d'Albret

Huguenot wars. 

 

She is famous for the anecdotes surrounding her first marriage to the German Duke of Cleves. Betrothed while still a child to him by King Francis, Jeanne seems to have taken it upon herself (after imploring the king to his face—an audacious act for anyone, let alone an eleven-year-old girl) to write a formal statement, complete with witness signatures, declaring her unequivocal opposition to the upcoming wedding..... when the wedding day itself arrived, had to be literally carried down the aisle. The marriage was never consummated due to her youth, and was later annulled because of changing political currents. 

 

Jeanne took a very different approach to the Reformation than her mother, Marguerite de Navarre. Whereas Marguerite preferred to work discretely, through diplomacy and carefully-nuanced loyalties to both churches, and worked to reform the Roman Catholic church from within while protecting persecuted reformers, Jeanne decided, after her parents’ death, to convert publicly to Protestantism, and fight openly for the Reformation. Jeanne had to face opposition at court, from her own husband (a Catholic later in life), and from enemy armies as a major political leader of the Huguenots. 

 

Jeanne worked closely with men like Coligny and Condé during the Third Huguenot War, and even rallied the Huguenot troops in person. 

 

She instituted official Reformation policies in her own kingdom of Navarre and sponsored translations of the New Testament into her people’s native Basque. 

**When Philip II of Spain sent an ambassador to pressure her at one point, Jeanne replied to him: “Although I am just a little Princess, God has given me the government of this country so I may rule it according to His Gospel and teach it His Laws. I rely on God, who is more powerful than the King of Spain.”

 

Papal envoys arrived to coax or coerce her into returning to Catholicism and abolishing heresy within her kingdom. Her response was to reply that "the authority of the Pope's legate is not recognized in Béarn". 

 

---At one stage there was a plot led by Pope Pius IV to have her kidnapped and turned over to the Spanish Inquisition, where she would be imprisoned in Madrid, and the rulers of France and Spain invited to annex Navarre to their crowns. Jeanne was summoned to Rome to be examined for heresy under the triple penalty of excommunication, the confiscation of her property, and a declaration that her kingdom was available to any ruler who wished to invade it. This last threat alarmed King Philip, and the blatant interference by the Papacy in French affairs also enraged Catherine de'Medici who, on behalf of Charles IX, sent angry letters of protest to the Pope. 

Jeanne d'Albret buying poisoned gloves from Catherine de Medici's parfumeur

The threats never materialized.

 --On 4 June 1572 Jeanne returned home from one of her shopping excursions feeling ill. The next morning she woke up with a fever and complained of an ache in the upper right-hand side of her body. Five days later she died.

--A popular rumor which circulated shortly afterward, maintained that Jeanne had been poisoned by Catherine de'Medici, who allegedly sent her a pair of perfumed gloves, skillfully poisoned by her perfumer, René, a fellow Florentine."

 Valerie Abraham/wiki