Jeanne D'Albret - Queen of Navarre

Queen of Navarre

On 25 May 1555, Henry II of Navarre died, at which time Jeanne and her husband became joint rulers of Navarre. On 18 August 1555 at Pau, Jeanne and Antoine were crowned in a joint ceremony according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church. The previous month, a coronation coin commemorating the new reign had been minted. It was inscribed in Latin with the following words: Antonius et Johanna Dei gratia reges Navarrae Domini Bearni. From her mother Marguerite (who had died in 1549), Jeanne had inherited her strong leanings towards religious reform, humanist thinking, and individual liberty. This legacy was influential in her decision to convert to Calvinism. In the first year of her reign, Queen Regnant Jeanne III called a conference of beleaguered Huguenot ministers. She later declared Calvinism the official religion of her kingdom after publicly embracing the teachings of John Calvin on Christmas Day 1560. This conversion made her the highest-ranking Protestant in France. It also designated her as an enemy of the Counter Reformation.

Following the imposition of Calvinism in her kingdom, priests and nuns were banished, Catholic churches destroyed, and Catholic ritual prohibited. She commissioned the translation of the New Testament into Basque and Béarnese for the benefit of her subjects.

She was described as "small of stature, frail but erect", her face was narrow, her light-coloured eyes, cold and unmoving, and her lips thin. She was highly intelligent, but austere and self-righteous. Her speech was sharply sarcastic and vehement. Agrippa d' Aubigne, the Huguenot chronicler described Jeanne as having "a mind powerful enough to guide the highest affairs".

In addition to her religious reforms, Jeanne immediately went to work reorganising her kingdom; making long-lasting reforms to the economic and judicial systems of her domains.

In 1561, the Queen Mother Catherine de' Medici, in her role as regent for her son King Charles IX, appointed Antoine Lieutenant General of France. Jeanne and Catherine had come into contact with one another at Court in the latter years of Francis I's reign and shortly after King Henry II's ascension to the French throne when Catherine attained the rank of queen consort. Mark Strage suggested that Jeanne was one of Catherine's main detractors, contemptuously referring to her as the "Florentine grocer's daughter".