Jeanne d'Albret

Jeanne III
Portrait by François Clouet, 1570
Queen of Navarre
Reign	25 May 1555 – 9 June 1572
Coronation	18 August 1555 at Pau
Predecessor	Henry II
Successor	Henry III
Co-ruler	Antoine (1555–1562)
Co-Princess of Andorra
Reign	1555–1572
Predecessor	Henry II
Successor	Henry III
Co-rulers	See Miquel Despuig (until 1556) Joan Pérez García de Oliván (1556–1560) Vacant (1560–1561) Pere de Castellet (1561–1571) Vacant (1571–1572)
Born	16 November 1528[1] Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Kingdom of France
Died	9 June 1572(1572-06-09) (aged 43) Paris, Kingdom of France
Burial	Ducal Church of collégiale Saint-Georges, Vendôme
Spouses	William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg ​ ​ (m. 1541; ann. 1545)​ Antoine de Bourbon ​ ​ (m. 1548; died 1562)​
Issue more...	Henry IV of France Catherine, Hereditary Princess of Lorraine
House	Albret
Father	Henry II of Navarre
Mother	Margaret of Angoulême
Religion	Reformed (Huguenot), prev. Roman Catholic
Signature

Jeanne d'Albret (Basque: Joana Albretekoa; Occitan: Joana de Labrit; 16 November 1528 – 9 June 1572), also known as Jeanne III, was Queen of Navarre from 1555 to 1572.

Jeanne was the daughter of Henry II of Navarre and Margaret of Angoulême (and thus the niece of Francis I of France). In 1541, she married William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg. The marriage was annulled in 1545. Jeanne married a second time in 1548, to Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme. They had two surviving children, Henry and Catherine.

When her father died in 1555, Jeanne and Antoine ascended the Navarrese throne. They reigned as joint rulers until Antoine died in 1562 from wounds suffered while besieging Protestant-held Rouen during the French Wars of Religion.

After her public conversion to Calvinism in 1560 however, Jeanne, on the other hand, had become the acknowledged spiritual and political leader of the French Huguenot movement,^[2] and thus a key figure on the opposing side to that of her husband in the French Wars of Religion. During the first and second war she remained relatively neutral, but in the third war she fled to La Rochelle, becoming the de facto leader of the Huguenot-controlled city. After negotiating a peace treaty with the French queen mother Catherine de' Medici and arranging the marriage of her son to Catherine's daughter Marguerite, Jeanne died suddenly in Paris. Her son, Henry, succeeded her first as Henry III of Navarre, and then later as Henry IV of France, the first Bourbon king of France.

Jeanne was the last active ruler of Navarre. Her son inherited her kingdom, but as he was constantly leading the Huguenot forces, he entrusted the government of Béarn to his sister, Catherine, who held the regency for more than two decades. In 1620, Jeanne's grandson Louis XIII annexed Navarre to the French crown.