Anne of Brittany

This article is about the historical figure. For the rock opera, see Anne de Bretagne (rock opera).

Anne
Duchess of Brittany
Reign	9 September 1488 – 9 January 1514
Enthronement	10 February 1489
Predecessor	Francis II
Successor	Claude
Queen consort of France
Tenure	6 December 1491 – 7 April 1498
Coronation	8 February 1492
Queen consort of France
Tenure	8 January 1499 – 9 January 1514
Coronation	18 November 1502
Born	(1477-01-25)25 January 1477 Nantes, Brittany
Died	9 January 1514(1514-01-09) (aged 36) Blois, France
Burial	Saint Denis Basilica
Spouse	Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VIII of France Louis XII of France
Issue among others...	Charles Orlando, Dauphin of France Claude, Queen of France Renée, Duchess of Ferrara
House	Dreux-Montfort
Father	Francis II, Duke of Brittany
Mother	Margaret of Foix
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Anne, Duchess of Brittany (25 January 1477 – 9 January 1514), also known as Anna of Brittany (French: Anne de Bretagne; Breton: Anna Vreizh), was the last independent Breton ruler, and twice the Queen consort of France, marrying two successive French kings.

Upon her father's death in 1488, she became Sovereign Duchess of Brittany, Countess of Nantes, Montfort, and Richmond, and Viscountess of Limoges.

She was is a central figure in the struggle for influence after his death that will lead to the union of Brittany and France. She was also high regard in the Breton memory as a conscious character who defended the Duchy.

Life

Early years and education

Anne was born on 25 January 1477 (or 15 January 1477 in the Old Style) in the Castle of the Dukes of Brittany in the city of Nantes in the Loire-Atlantique département of France, as the eldest child of Duke Francis II of Brittany and his second wife Margaret of Foix, Infanta of Navarre. Four years later (before 10 May 1481), her parents had a second daughter, Isabelle.

It is likely that she learned to read and write in French, maybe a little Latin. Contrary to what is sometimes found, it's unlikely to have learned Greek or Hebrew and never spoke or understood the Breton language used in the Nantes environments in which it operates are foreigners. She was raised by a governess, Françoise de Dinan, Lady of Chateaubriant and by marriage Countess of Laval. In addition, she had several tutors, included her butler, the court poet Jean Meschinot who probably taught her dancing, singing and music.

Heiress of Brittany

In this period, the law of succession was unclear, but prior to the Breton War of Succession mainly operated according to semi-Salic Law; i.e., women could inherit, but only if the male line had died out. The Treaty of Guérande in 1365, however, stated that in the absence of a male heir from the House of Montfort, the heirs of Joanna of Penthièvre would succeed. By the time Anne was born, her father was the only male from the Breton House of Montfort, and the Blois-Penthièvre heir was a female, Nicole of Blois, who in 1480 sold her rights over Brittany to King Louis XI of France for the amount of 50,000 écus.

The lack of a male heir threatened to put the Duchy into a dynastic crisis or to pass it directly into the royal domain. To avoid this, Francis II had Anne officially recognised as his heiress by the Estates of Brittany in 1486; however, the question of her marriage remained a diplomatic issue. Francis II had no intention of allowing France to absorb Brittany. Therefore, he sought to marry his daughter to an individual in a position capable of withstanding French power.

Betrothals

Anne was betrothed a number of times.

• In 1480 she was officially promised in marriage to Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Edward IV of England; however, soon after the death of Edward IV in 1483 the boy disappeared, presumed to have been killed on the orders of his regent, Richard III.
• Maximilian, King of the Romans and Archduke of Austria, widower of Mary of Burgundy, daughter and heiress of Charles the Bold.
• Alain I of Albret, son of Catherine of Rohan and Jean I of Albret. Through his mother, he was a great-grandson of Duke John V of Brittany, and thus a possible heir. Ally of Duke Francis II, however Anne refused to marry him because she found him repulsive.
• Louis, Duke of Orléans, cousin of King Charles VIII and in turn future King, was another aspirant for her hand, despite being already married with the King's sister Joan.
• John IV of Chalon-Arlay, Prince of Orange. A grandson of Richard, Count of Étampes, and nephew of Francis II, he was in line to the throne after Anne and Isabelle.
• Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham. In 1488 Henry VII had suggested a marriage between Buckingham and Anne, but in December 1489 the executors of Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland, paid the King £4000 for Buckingham's marriage to Percy's eldest daughter Eleanor.

Viscount John II of Rohan, also in line to the Breton throne, offered with the support of Marshal Jean IV de Rieux a double marriage of his sons François and Jean with Anne and her sister Isabelle, but Francis II opposed this plan.

Marriages

In 1488, the armies of Francis II were defeated at the Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier, ending the Mad War (la Guerre Folle) between Brittany and France. In the Treaty of Sablé (19 August 1488), which concluded the peace settlement, the Duke was forced to accept clauses stipulating that his daughters were not to marry without the approval of the King of France.

With the death of Francis II soon afterwards (9 September 1488) as a result of a fall from his horse, Brittany was plunged into fresh crisis, leading to the last Franco-Breton war. On his deathbed, the Duke made his daughter promised never to consent the subjection to the Kingdom of France. Before he died, Francis II appointed the Marshal of Rieux guardian of her daughter.

Anne became the Duchess of Brittany, and married Maximilian I of Austria at Rennes Cathedral by proxy on 19 December 1490, conferred upon her the title Queen of the Romans. The French regarded it as a serious provocation—it not only violated the Treaty of Sablé (the King of France not having consented to the marriage), but also reintroduced an enemy of the French as ruler of Brittany, an event that they always wanted to avoid during the 14th and 15th centuries. The marriage also proved ill-timed: the Habsburgs were too busy in Hungary to pay any serious attention to Brittany, and the Castilians were busy fighting in Granada.

Although both Castile and England sent small numbers of troops to supplement the Ducal army, neither wished for open warfare with France. The spring of 1491 brought new successes by the French general La Trémoille (the previous winner of the Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier]), and King Charles VIII of France came to lay siege to Rennes, where Anne stayed, in order to force her to desist from her marriage with the enemy of the kingdom of France.

After two months of siege without assistance and having no hope to resist more, Rennes fell. Charles VIII entered in the city on 15 November, and both parties signed the Treaty of Rennes, ending the fourth military campaign of the French over Brittany. After refused all the marriage proposals with French princes, Anne became engaged to the King in the vault of the Jacobins in Rennes on 17 November 1491. Then, escorted by her army (ostensibly to show that she had willingly consented to the marriage), Anne went to Langeais to be married. Austria made diplomatic protests (especially before the Holy See), claiming that the marriage was illegal because the bride was unwilling, that she was already legally married to Maximilian, and that Charles VIII was legally betrothed to Margaret of Austria, Maximilian's daughter.

Marriage to Charles VIII of France, waxwork tableau at the Château de Langeais.

The official marriage between Anne and King Charles VIII of France was celebrated at the Château de Langeais on 6 December 1491 at dawn. This discreet marriage was concluded urgently because it is tecnically illegal until Pope Innocent VIII, in exchange of substantial concessions, validated the union on 15 February 1492 and granted not only the annulment to the marriage by proxy with Maximilian but also the dispensation for the marriage with Charles VIII because the King and Anne are related in the forbidden 4th degree of consanguinity. The marriage contract provided that the spouse who outlived the other would retain possession of Brittany; however, it also stipulated that if Charles VIII died without male heirs, Anne would marry his successor, thus ensuring the French kings a second chance to permanently annex Brittany.

Queen of France

Anne was able to negotiate a fair contract before marrying Charles VIII. This contract ensured that the second child, son or daughter, would inherit the duchy of Brittany. Anne's second marriage began badly: she brought two beds with her when she came to marry Charles, and the King and Queen often lived apart. She was anointed and crowned Queen of France at Saint-Denis on 8 February 1492; she was forbidden by her husband to use the title Duchess of Brittany, which became a bone of contention between the two. When her husband fought in the wars in Italy, the regency powers were exercised by his sister Anne of Beaujeu. Pregnant for most of her married life, Anne lived primarily in the royal castles of Amboise, Loches and Plessis or in the towns of Lyon, Grenoble or Moulins (when the king was in Italy). She briefly became Queen of Sicily and titular Queen of Jerusalem with the conquest of Naples by Charles VIII.

The marriage produced four living children, none of whom survived early childhood. Only the first, Charles Orland (11 October 1492 – 16 December 1495), survived infancy. A healthy and intelligent child, he was doted on by his parents, who both suffered terrible grief when he died suddenly of the measles. After him was born Charles, who lived for less than a month; and Francis and Anne, who each died almost immediately after being born. These tragedies caused a great deal of pain to Anne, who prayed openly for a son after the death of Francis.

Around her, there was a famous circle of court poets: among them the Italian humanist Publio Fausto Andrelini from Forlì, who spread the New Learning in France.

Widowhood and remarriage

Court of the Ladies of Queen Anne of Brittany, Miniature representing this lady weeping on account of the absence of her husband during the Italian war, a 19th-century illustration based on a miniature from a 16th-century manuscript, "Epistres Envoyées au Roi"

When Charles VIII died in 1498, Anne was 21 years old and childless. Legally, she was now obliged to marry the new king, Louis XII; however, he was already married, to Joan, daughter of Louis XI and sister to Charles VIII. On 19 August 1498, at Étampes, she agreed to marry Louis if he obtained an annulment from Joan within a year. If she was gambling that the annulment would be denied, she lost: Louis's first marriage was dissolved by Pope Alexander VI before the end of the year.

In the interim, in October 1498, Anne returned to rule Brittany. She restored the faithful Philippe de Montauban to the chancellery of Brittany, named Jean de Châlon, Prince of Orange, as Hereditary Lieutenant General of Brittany, convened the Estates of Brittany, and ordered production of a coin bearing her name. She took the opportunity to tour the Duchy, visiting many places she had never been able to see as a child. She made triumphal entries into the cities of the duchy, where her vassals received her sumptuously.

Anne's third marriage ceremony, on 8 January 1499 was concluded under conditions radically different from those of the second. She was no longer a child, but a dowager queen, and determined to ensure the recognition of her rights as sovereign duchess from that point forward. Although her new husband exercised the ruler's powers in Brittany, he formally recognized her right to the title "Duchess of Brittany" and issued decisions in her name.

As Duchess, Anne fiercely defended the independence of her Duchy. She arranged the marriage of her daughter, Claude, to Charles of Austria in 1501, to reinforce the Franco-Spanish alliance and ensure French success in the Italian Wars; however, Louis broke off the marriage when it became likely that Anne would not produce a male heir. Instead, Louis arranged a marriage between Claude and the heir to the French throne, Francis of Angoulême. Anne, determined to maintain Breton independence, refused until death to sanction the marriage, pushing instead for Claude to marry Charles, or for her other daughter, Renée, to inherit the Duchy.

Death

Tomb of Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne in Saint-Denis Basilica

Reliquary of Anne of Brittany's heart.

Anne died at the Château de Blois on 9 January 1514 of a kidney-stone attack. She was buried in the necropolis of Saint Denis. Her funeral was exceptionally long, lasting 40 days, and it inspired all future French royal funerals until the 18th century. The courtier Pierre Choqué recorded that two Masses were read, the first by the Cordeliers (i.e., Franciscans) and the second by the Jacobins (i.e., Dominicans). Two requiems were also sung, possibly those that survive by Johannes Prioris and Antoine de Févin. Separate mourning motets by other members of the two royal choirs also survive: Quis dabit oculis by Costanzo Festa and Fiere attropos by Pierre Moulu.

According to her will, Anne's heart was placed in a raised enamel gold reliquary, then transported to Nantes to be deposited in the tomb made for her parents in the chapel of the Carmelite friars. This was done on 19 March 1514, but it was later transferred to the Saint-Pierre Cathedral. Anne's reliquary is a bivalvular box oval articulated by a hinge, made of a sheet of gold pushed back and guillochéd, broadside of a gold cordelière and topped by a crown of lily and clover. It is inscribed on the obverse as follows:

En ce petit vaisseau

De fin or pur et munde

Repose ung plus grand cueur

Que oncque dame eut au munde

Anne fut le nom delle

En France deux fois royne

Duchesse des Bretons

Royale et Souveraine.

It was made by an anonymous goldsmith of the court of Blois, perhaps drawn by Jean Perréal. In 1792, by order of the National Convention, the reliquary was disinterred and emptied as part of the collection of precious metals belonging to churches. It was sent to Paris to be melted down, but was kept instead in the National Library. It was returned to Nantes in 1819 and kept in various museums; it has been in the Dobrée Museum since 1896.

Anne's will also conferred the succession of Brittany upon her second daughter, Renée. Her husband ignored this, confirmed Claude as Duchess, and married her to Francis the year following Anne's death. When Francis became king in 1515, the Duchy of Brittany was once again the property of the queen consort of France.

Personal characteristics

Anne as Queen, receives a book in praise of famous women, painted by Jean Perréal.

Anne was a highly intelligent woman who spent much of her time on the administration of Brittany. She was described as shrewd, proud and haughty in manner. She made the safeguarding of Breton autonomy, and the preservation of the Duchy outside the French crown, her life's work, although that goal would prove failed shortly after her death.

Anne was also a patron of the arts and enjoyed music. A prolific collector of tapestries, it is very likely that the unicorn tapestries now on view at The Cloisters museum in New York City were commissioned by her in celebration of her wedding to Louis XII. Of her four surviving illuminated manuscript books of hours the most famous is the Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany. She also patronized printed books and their authors.

She was a devoted mother, spending as much time as possible with her children. She commissioned a book of prayers for her son, Charles-Orland, to use in teaching him how to pray, and as guidance for his role as future King of France. Unfortunately, Charles-Orland died in 1495, and no other son lived more than a few weeks. According to the memoirs of Brantôme, Anne greatly expanded her household and retinue at court, especially in respect to young girls, forming a kind of finishing school, and in having a company of 100 Breton gentlemen at court. These innovations influenced later French courts.

At her marriage to Charles VIII at age 14, Anne was described as a young and rosy-cheeked girl. By the time of her marriage to Louis, aged 22, after seven pregnancies with no surviving children, she was described as pale-faced and wan. By the end of her life, at 36, she had been pregnant 14 times with seven stillbirths. Of the remaining seven births, only two survived childhood.

Marriages and Issue

Tomb of the children at Tours Cathedral

Anne's first marriage, on 19 December 1490, was by proxy to Maximilian of Habsburg. It was dissolved by the Pope in the following year - because it was by proxy rather than in person, it is not generally considered a 'real' marriage.

Her second husband was Charles VIII of France, whom she married at Chateau de Langeais on 6 December 1491. She was pregnant by him seven times:

• Charles Orland, Dauphin of France (11 October 1492 – 16 December 1495). Her only healthy son, he died of the measles when three years old.
• Francis (August 1493). Anne had become pregnant in late 1492/early 1493, but travelled with her husband from castle to castle; she went into labour during a drive in the forest of Courcelles, and the child was premature and stillborn. Buried at Notre-Dame de Cléry.
• A stillborn daughter (March 1494). Anne had become pregnant again five months after the stillbirth, and avoided travel (instead residing in Amboise near the Dauphin). However in February 1494 she accompanied the king to Lyon, where he was preparing to depart for the Italian Wars. After arriving on 15 March, she attended all of the ceremonies; the stress of the occasion caused her to go into premature labour, and she gave birth to a stillborn girl.
• A stillborn daughter (March 1495). She had become pregnant again in late 1494, but lost the baby soon after.
• Charles, Dauphin of France (8 September 1496 - 2 October 1496). His death prompted Anne to withdraw temporarily to Moulins in despair.
• Francis, Dauphin of France (July 1497). He died several hours after his birth.
• Anne of France (20 March 1498). She died on the day of her birth at Château de Plessis-lez-Tours.

Her third husband was Louis XII of France. She was at least seven times pregnant by him:

• Claude of France (13 October 1499 - 20 July 1524), who succeeded her as Duchess of Brittany and later also became queen consort of France.
• Stillborn son (1500).
• Stillborn son (21 January 1503).
• miscarriage (end 1503).
• miscarriage (1505).
• Stillborn son (1508)
• miscarriage (1509).
• Renée of France (25 October 1510 – 12 June 1574), married Ercole II d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara, and became the Duchess of Chartres.
• Stillborn son (January 1512).

Although Anne bore fourteen children (at least), only two daughters outlived her: Claude by ten years, and Renée by sixty-one years. Renée was just three when Anne died, while Claude was nearly fifteen.

Cultural symbolism of Anne

Main article: Representations of Anne of Brittany

Even while she was alive, the royal propaganda of Charles VIII and of Louis XII introduced Anne of Brittany as a perfect queen, a symbol of union and peace between the kingdom of France and the duchy of Brittany. In the following centuries, historians and popular culture sometimes presented Anne of Brittany in differing fashions, ascribing to her physical and psychological characteristics that are not necessarily supported by historical evidence.

In 1991, the five-hundredth anniversary of the marriage of Anne of Brittany and Charles VIII of France was celebrated in Langeais.

Ancestry

Family of Anne of Brittany

16. John IV, Duke of Brittany 8. John V, Duke of Brittany 17. Joanna of Flanders 4. Richard, Count of Étampes 18. Charles II of Navarre 9. Joan of Navarre 19. Joan of France 2. Francis II, Duke of Brittany 20. Charles V of France 10. Louis I, Duke of Orléans 21. Joanna of Bourbon 5. Margaret, Countess of Vertus 22. Gian Galeazzo Visconti 11. Valentina Visconti, Countess of Vertus 23. Isabella, Countess of Vertus 1. Anne of Brittany 24. Archambaud de Grailly 12. John I, Count of Foix 25. Isabella, Countess of Foix 6. Gaston IV, Count of Foix 26. Charles I of Albret 13. Jeanne of Albret 27. Marie de Sully 3. Margaret of Foix 28. Ferdinand I of Aragon 14. John II of Aragon 29. Eleanor of Alburquerque 7. Eleanor of Navarre 30. Charles III of Navarre 15. Blanche I of Navarre 31. Eleanor of Castile

External links

• LebrelBlanco.com, Anne de Bretagne in Medieval History of Navarre
• Jean-Luc Deuffic: [1] Les manuscrits d'Anne de Bretagne
• Faksimile.ch