Anne of Brittany, Part Two
When last we left Anne she was about to get married to Maximillian, the Archduke of Austria.
I’m going to do my best to avoid dates this time around. We’ll see how that goes.
Anne is promised in marriage to Maximillian of Austria. Austria and France are mutual enemies. The idea that Anne will marry his enemy and deliver Brittany to him makes Charles VIII, King of France, very unhappy. War-like even.
So Charles goes to war against Anne and Brittany. Anne, meanwhile, scampers off to Rennes (pronounced Ren, because French) where she, aged 15 and a Duchess, marries Maximillian by proxy, since Max is away in Hungary. Charles besieges Rennes (still pronounced Ren, because French) and Anne is forced to surrender. Two days later Anne agrees to marry Charles VIII.
Problem: she’s married to Maximillian. Solution: annulment.
Charles and Anne head off the Chateau de Langeais where they are married secretly at dawn three weeks after the engagement was announced. Pope Innocent VIII annulled the marriage to Maximillian in return for “concessions”.
Rabbit Hole
The not so innocent Pope Innocent VIII.
Innocent VIII was not known for his saintly ways. He had seven illegitimate children before entering the priesthood and possibly two while in the priesthood. With the Vatican running out of money, he created offices and sold them to the highest bidder. The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire paid Innocent the equivalent of half a years income to keep his rival and brother, Cem, under arrest in Rome. As a sweetener, the Sultan also included a piece of the Holy Lance and an annual fee. Whenever the Sultan looked to invade the Balkans, Innocent would threaten to release Cem and the Sultan would back off, and he would give Innocent more gold.
Innocent received 100 slaves from King Ferdinand of Aragon and he shared them with his most favourite cardinals.
He married his eldest son to the daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici, in return Innocent agreed to make Lorezno’s 13 year old son a cardinal (he later went on to become Pope Leo X).
To be fair to Innocent, though, very few of the Popes of this period (the Middle Ages) were innocent or even pious, regardless of their name.
End Rabbit Hole.
So, 15 years old, Anne is now married to Charles VIII. The marriage contract is quite interesting. It stated that the spouse who outlived the other would retain Brittany and if Charles died first, without any male heirs, Anne would marry Charles’ successor.
Despite the fact that Anne brought two beds to the marriage and Charles was often away doing King stuff, Anne was pregnant, a lot. On average, every 14 months. None of those children survived.
Charles died in 1498. Want to talk about bizarre ways to die? Kings and princes are replete with them. Charles was in Amboise, on his way to see a game of what would eventually become tennis. He banged his head on the lintel of a door and died 9 hours later. And he wasn’t the first to die by lintel. Louis III, of France, also banged his head on a lintel and died. Seriously people, learn to duck (the irony here is that I banged my head at least three times going through doors at various French Chateaux and keeps when visiting the area in 2024. Apparently, I need to learn to duck as well.)
With Charles dead Anne, now 21, took full charge of Brittany, restoring and building, appointing loyal, and by all accounts competent, nobles to administrative offices and even had a coin produced with her name on it. She was proudly declaring herself the Duchess of Brittany.
Anne still had to deal with her marriage contract that stipulated she marry Charles’ successor, Louis XII. Here Anne made a play to stay single. Louis was already married to Charles’ sister, so in August 1498, Anne agreed to marry Louis but only if he could get his marriage annulled within a year. Some historians believe she didn’t think that would happen.
She was wrong. Louis’ marriage was annulled by Christmas.
Her new, third, marriage contract was significantly different from her first two. No longer a child she made sure that her position as Duchess of Brittany was recognized and any decisions made by Louis that affected Brittany would be issued in her name. Further, Anne’s second child would be her heir with the idea that it would keep the duchy separate from France.
Her marriage to Charles resulted in at least 6 pregnancies, none surviving. With Louis she was pregnant at least 5 more times, 2 daughters surviving to adulthood.
Anne was fierce in her desire to keep Brittany independent. She attempted to marry her first daughter Claude, who was to be heir to the duchy, to Charles of Austria. Louis, as king, had to agree and while he stated in public he was fine with this marriage in truth he was not. He worked in private to delay the marriage and arrange for Claude to marry Francis, the heir apparent to the throne of France. Realizing she was fighting a losing battle, Anne then tried to make her second daughter, Renee the heir to the duchy but Louis refused. Anne, fairly annoyed at Louis, left him for a tour of Brittany, going to locations she had never been to as a child and being treated as a ruling sovereign by the Bretons.
Louis took her absence to heart, enquiring after her numerous times and by the time she returned in September, after an absence of four months, he was asking about her at least six times a day. For the next nine years Anne and Louis maneuvered to have Claude marry the noble of their choice. (This part of the story is almost Machiavellian in the manoeuvring by Anne, Louis, future King Francis’ mother Louise and other courtiers. At one point Anne had a supporter of Louise’s plan tried and convicted of treason.)
In 1514, Anne suffered a severe kidney stone attack. Knowing she was dying she finally agreed to Louis’ plan to marry Claude to the next king of France. Anne died at age 36 and her body was entombed in Paris in the Basilica of Saint Denis, while her heart was placed in a gold reliquary and placed in the tomb of her parents in Nantes.
Epilogue
Anne’s daughter Claude had a son who became both heir to France and Duke of Brittany. When her son ascended to the throne as Henry II, Brittany finally lost its independence and became a part of France. Henry II had a wife, Catherine de’ Medici, and a mistress, Diane of Poitiers. Diane was 20 years older than Henry II and they met when he was 8 and she was a lady in waiting of his mother. Diane and Catherine, cousins but not friends, were instrumental in the expansion and design of the Chateau Chenonceau.
Claude was married to Francis in 1515, shortly after the death of Anne and was pregnant at least 7 times before her death at the age of 24 in 1524. Cause of her death was unknown although it has been attributed to exhaustion or syphilis, which she almost certainly caught from her husband.
Anne’s funeral lasted 40 days and became the model for all future royal ladies until the 19th century. She was a model for future noble and royal wives who could work behind the throne to achieve their goals. Anne herself was revered by the Bretons and there are numerous statues, and churches named for her in Brittany, and although eventually Brittany became part of France, many Bretons still think themselves unique and separate.