Renée of France, Duchess of Ferrara

Renée of France, duchess of Ferrara (born 25 October 1510)

The younger daughter of Louis XII of France and Anne of Brittany, Renée of France was orphaned while still a young child--her mother died in January of 1514, when Renée was three, her father a year later, in January of 1515, when she was four. (Renée's older sister was Claude of France).*

Renée of France, c. 1520,
drawing by Jean Clouet

After her parents' deaths, Renée was raised at the court by Marguerite of Angoulême, the sister of Louis XII's successor, Francis I. Marguerite is a woman whom we have met before, noted both as a writer and for her sympathy for religious reform.

After Marguerite married Henry of Navarre in 1527, she took the young French princess with her to the Château de Nérac, a favorite residence in Navarre. (The rebuilding of the castle in the French Renaissance style would be completed by Marguerite's daughter, Jeanne d'Albret, queen of Navarre.)

When Renée was eighteen years old, in 1528, she was married to Ercole d'Este (the son of Lucrezia Borgia) in order to strengthen the alliance between France and Ferrara. Although the Ferrarese court was "one of the most glittering in Europe," Renée's "Italian career" as the duchess of Ferrara was a disaster, husband and wife mismatched in the extreme. 

Renée remained entirely French in her language and her sympathies. Her slowness in acquiring "even a rudimentary knowledge" of Italian "remained steadily against her, keeping her, apart from any other consideration, a very isolated person in her own establishment." She "persistently refused to identify herself with her husband's interests," clinging "with stupid pathos" even to the French manner of dress.

Thus isolated, Renée turned to other pursuits, and her court at Ferrara became a safe haven for intellectuals like the classical scholar Olympia Morata, the poet Vittoria Colonna, and the French poet Clément Marot, and a refuge for French Huguenots. John Calvin visited Renée's court in 1536, and under his influence she was converted in 1540. In retaliation, Ercole dismissed and imprisoned members of his wife's household staff. 

Although she had been granted "exemptions" for her religious views by Pope Paul III in 1543, in 1554 she was brought before the Inquisition by Julius II. Ercole separated his wife from her children and imprisoned her. "We kept her shut up for fifteen days, with only people who had no sort of Lutheran tendencies to wait upon her," he wrote, adding, "We also threatened to confiscate all her property."

Renée of France,
portrait by Corneille de Lyon

In spite of all the pressures, Renée withstood her examination by the Inquisition, and a formal sentence was passed against her. She was condemned for heresy and again imprisoned by her husband. 

A week later, she recanted, however, and those whom she had formerly befriended did not rally to her defense in her time of need. Calvin's response was shocked: "What shall I say, except that constancy is a very rare virtue among the great of this world?" Olympia Morata said she was not surprised by the recantation, since she had always believed Renée's was a weak mind (une tête legère).

Renée lived apart from her husband after her release. In 1559, after her husband's death and estranged from her son Alfonso, she returned to France after thirty years in Ferrara, settling on her estates near Montargis.

During the wars of religion that raged after her return, she was besieged by her son-in-law Francis, duke of Guise. When he threatened to destroy the walls of her fortress, Renée replied that "she would herself mount the battlements and see if he dare kill a King's daughter."

Renée and Montargis withstood the siege, and in the religious persecution that followed, she offered a haven to French Huguenots "to her own constant peril." Under the circumstances, John Calvin, who seems to have been as "inconstant" as the woman whose inconstancy he had bewailed, resumed his friendship with Renée, and his correspondence to her indicates his recognition at last of her courage. 

This courage led her to write "imploring letters" to her son in 1569, protesting his persecution of those suspected of following reformed religion and to providing a haven for Huguenots again in the same year. But her son ignored her pleas, and, under threat, she was forced to send away those who had come to her for protection. She reportedly told the king's envoy that "if she had his sword in her hands, he would deserve to die, as a messenger of death."

Both her son and the French king attempted to take control of Renée's income and possessions. Her daughter Anna, by then wife of the duke of Nemours, recovered a document by which Louis XII, Renée's father, had given her a claim to her mother's independent Brittany, which she was forced to cede; "little by little," as one biographer notes, "all her lands were being taken from her":

Gisors and Vernon were given to the Duc d'Alençon, Caen and Falaise had been seized by Alfonso [her son] for debts, Chartres and Montargis were to belong to the Duchess of Nemours [her daughter Anna], but Renée was suffered to remain as a pensioner in her own castle. Her son Alfonso was furious and wrote the most bitter letters to his mother, whom he never forgave, for yielding any possible claim to [Brittany].

In 1572 Renée was in Paris for the marriage of Henry of Navarre, who would become Henry IV of France, and Marguerite of Valois. Lodging with her daughter Anna, whose Catholic husband was the duke of Nemours, Renée escaped the bloodbath of the St. Bartholomew massacre. 

She was escorted back to Montargis, all Huguenot services forbidden. There, "broken in health and spirit," she "ruled her great castle . . . in lonely state," "neglected and forgotten by her sons and daughters, on whom she had bestowed all that remained of her possessions." She dictated her last will and testament just before her death on 2 July 1575. In proudly listing her titles, she contrasted the state to which she had fallen with the state she had been born and raised to occupy:

We, Renée of France, Duchess of Chartres, Countess of Gisors, Lady of Montargis, widow and dowager of the late Monseigneur of good memory Ercole II of Ferrara, Daughter of the lady King Louis XII and the late Queen Anne, Duchess of Brétagne.

*This entry has been adapted from The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan).

And many thanks to Amy-Eloise for her correction (see below, comments)--her correct identification of an image in an earlier version of this post allowed for my correction here. The portrait she identified has been removed, and a second (correct) image of Renée of France has been added.

Anne of Brittany: Twice Queen of France--But Always a Duchess

Anne of Brittany (born 25 January 1477)

Throughout history, many royal women accrued multiple titles by marriage--a rare few, like Eleanor of Aquitaine, to name perhaps the most famous example, achieved the highest possible status through serial marriages.* Eleanor was, first, queen of France--but after fifteen years, her marriage to Louis VII of France was annulled. Eleanor then married Henry II of England, becoming, second, queen of England. But no woman--or at least no woman I know of--had quite the same marital career as Anne of Brittany, who was queen of France twice.

Anne of Brittany,
c. 1503-1508

The daughter of Francis II of Brittany, Anne became the duchess of Brittany, an independent duchy, in her own right after her father's death in 1488. Although her father had ensured Anne's succession by having her right recognized by the Estates of Brittany, his death resulted in a political crisis.

Three powerful men sought to control Brittany by means of marriage to the new duchess: the French duke of Orléans (who was already married--but, oh well); Alain d'Albret, duke of Guyenne; and Maximilian of Austria, newly elected king of the Romans.

Although her father had been forced to agree that his daughter could not marry without approval of the French king, Anne acted without consulting France. Because an alliance with the Habsburg duke seemed to offer continued independence for Brittany, the young duchess married Maximilian by proxy in 1490.

But that was not the end of the matter. Anne of France, the powerful regent of France, pursued her own kind of "alliance" with Brittany; her army invaded, captured Nantes, then laid siege to Rennes, where Anne of Brittany had retreated. Although the young duchess could have abandoned Brittany and joined her husband Maximilian, she decided to instead to marry Anne of France's brother, Charles VIII, the king of France.

Under the circumstances, she did the best she could for Brittany. By the terms of the marriage contract, if Anne died before Charles, the province would become part of France; if Charles died first, Brittany would be returned to her to rule. But the contract did contain a clause that limited Anne's options: if Charles were to die without a male heir, Anne of Brittany was to required to "marry his successor and remit to him her duchy."

(This marriage, of Charles VIII to Anne of Brittany, is the reason that Margaret of Austria, la petite reine, to whom Charles had been betrothed since 1483, was sent back home, her political usefulness no longer so useful.) 

Although Anne gave birth to four children during her marriage to Charles, including three boys, none of them survived. When Charles died in 1498, Anne was still only twenty-one years old. By the terms of her marriage contract, she was to marry his successor--but that was her old adversary and suitor, Louis of Orléans, now Louis XII. And he, unfortunately, was still married--to Jeanne of France, sister of the dead Charles VIII and of the formidable Anne of France. 

Despite all the complications, the twenty-two-year-long marriage of Louis XII and Jeanne of France was declared void on 17 December 1498--on the grounds of non-consummation. (Louis "rewarded" Jeanne with the gift of the title duchess of Berry; she earned a more enduring title for herself, Saint Jeanne of Valois, establishing a new religious order, the Order of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She died in 1505, her cause of canonization beginning in 1631. She was beatified in 1742 and canonized in 1950.)

Jan Mostaert's portrait of a lady,
"possibly" Anne of Brittany,
painted c. 1520

While Louis disentangled himself from his first wife, Anne returned to Brittany, where she was warmly welcomed. She convened the Estates, toured the duchy, and determined to regain political control. The terms of her marriage contract in 1498 were better than those of the 1491 contract; if her marriage to Louis failed to produce an heir for Brittany, the duchy was to pass to her Breton heirs.

Anne of Brittany became queen of France--for the second time--on 8 January 1499 when she married Louis. Over the next twelve years, she gave birth to six children, including four boys. Only two daughters survived, Claude (b. 1499) and Renée (b. 1510). 

Anne of Brittany died on 9 January 1514, just a few days short of her thirty-seventh birthday. Over the course of her life, she had been twice queen of France and, briefly, queen of Sicily and titular queen of Jerusalem. (Charles VIII had invaded Italy and claimed these titles in 1494.)

But she would be the last independent ruler of Brittany; despite Anne's lifetime of effort, neither of her daughters would inherit an independent Brittany, much less govern there. 

Realizing he would have no male heir, Louis arranged a marriage between his elder daughter, Claude, and the man who would inherit the French throne, Francis of Angoulême. Still trying to maintain Brittany's independence, Anne attempted to make sure her younger daughter, Renée, would become duchess of Brittany. She was not successful. After Anne's death, Claude became queen of France and duchess of a no-longer independent Brittany. Anne's younger daughter, Renée, married Ercole d’ Este, Duke of Ferrarra.

Anne of Brittany's daughter, Claude,
surrounded by her daughters--
and her husband's second wife

The above portrait was commissioned by Catherine de' Medici in 1550 and is included in her book of hours. Although there are doubts about the identity of the sitters, many believe that the central figure is Anne of Brittany's elder daughter, Claude, queen of France. Claude's daughter, Madeleine of France (b. 1520), on the top right, became queen of Scotland, very briefly, in 1537 (she died just six months after her marriage). There is some doubt about the small figure at the bottom right, below Madeleine--although it may be Claude's daughter Louise, who died at age two (in 1517), there is a more general agreement that this figure represents Claude's younger sister, Renée. The figure opposite, Charlotte, is Claude's daughter who died at age eight (in 1524). Claude's daughter Marguerite (b. 1523), above Charlotte, never knew her mother, who died just months after her birth. She was named duchess of Berry in her own right in 1550. She was married, at age thirty-six, to Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy. The final figure, Eleanor of Austria, became the second wife of Francis I, marrying him in 1530. Interestingly, she was also a two-time queen, first of Portugal, then of France. After Francis I died, she got to retire. But that's another story . . .

*This post has been adapted from The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan).

Update: Thanks to Rozsa Gaston for the comment about the 1520 portrait I have used, above, for Anne of Brittany, by Jan Mostaert. The sitter is unknown--the portrait is "of a lady," with the further note, "possibly Anne of Brittany." The image is on Wikimedia Commons with this information: "Owned by the Collections of the Czartoryski Princes in Gołuchów (Division of the National Museum in Poznań), lost 1941." However, the portrait was auctioned by Sotheby's in 2001. 

About the history of the painting, the list of "Wartime Losses, Foreign Painting: Oil Paintings, Pastels, Watercolours Lost Between 1939-1945," prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Poland, notes that this painting was not simply "lost" in 1941 but looted from the "Collections of the Czartoryski Princes in Gołuchów." About the Mostaert painting, the registration notes: "In 1997 the painting was offered for sale by Sotheby's in New York. The Polish authorities intervened and the auction house withdrew it from sale. The owner’s heir filed a judicial claim to obtain its return. The proceedings dragged on, so the parties to the dispute opted for a settlement under which they jointly sold the painting. Now in a private collection."