Anne de La Tour d'Auvergne

Anne de la Tour d'Auvergne
Countess of Auvergne
A contemporary portrait of Anne de la Tour d’Auvergne
Spouse(s)	John Stewart, Duke of Albany
Noble family	La Tour d'Auvergne
Father	John III, Count of Auvergne
Mother	Jeanne de Bourbon-Vendôme
Born	1496
Died	1524 (aged 28)

Anne de La Tour d'Auvergne (1496–1524) was sovereign Countess of Auvergne from 1501 until 1524, and Duchess of Albany by marriage to John Stewart, Duke of Albany. In her marriage contract, she was called 'Anne de Boulogne fille de Jehan Comte de Boulogne et Auvergne.'^[1]

Family

She was the eldest of two daughters born to Jean III of la Tour d'Auvergne and Jeanne of Bourbon. Her younger sister was Madeleine de La Tour d'Auvergne, who would marry Lorenzo II de' Medici and become the mother of Catherine de' Medici. As the elder daughter, Anne was her father's heiress.

Her father's sister was Jeanne de la Tour d'Auvergne, d.1510, wife of Aymar de Poitiers. Aymar de Poitiers and Jeanne de la Tour d'Auvergne were the grandparents of Diane de Poitiers, mistress of Henry II, King of France.

Marriage

On 13 July 1505, she married her first cousin John Stewart, Duke of Albany, the intermittent heir presumptive to the Kingdom of Scotland and its sometime-regent, who lived in France as a sort of exile.^[2]

Death and inheritance

Anne died in 1524 at her castle of Saint-Saturnin,^[3] leaving her inheritance (the feudal county of Auvergne) to her infant niece, Catherine de' Medici (born 1519), daughter of her late younger sister Madeleine and Lorenzo II, Duke of Urbino.

A manuscript detailing Anne's inheritance, with pictures of her castles in Auvergne, and her descent from the legendary Belle Moree, daughter of a Pharaoh, survives in the Royal Library of the Hague.^[4] The Bibliothèque nationale de France has another manuscript version of this fabulous genealogy, and a similar inventory of Auvergne castles made for Catherine de' Medici.^[5] Anne and the Duke of Albany were painted in a stained-glass window at Vic-le-Comte.^[6]

Ancestry

Ancestors of Anne de La Tour d'Auvergne

16. Bertrand IV of la Tour               8. Bertrand V de la Tour                       17. Marie I, Countess of Auvergne               4. Bertrand VI of Auvergne                             18. Louis du Peschin               9. Jacquette du Peschin                       19. Ysoul de Sully               2. John III, Count of Auvergne                                   20. Guy de La Trémoïlle               10. Georges de la Tremoille                       21. Marie de Sully               5. Louise de la Tremoille                             22. Jean de L'Isle-Bouchard               11. Catherine de L'Isle-Bouchard                       23. Jeanne de Bueil               1. Anne de La Tour d'Auvergne, Countess of Auvergne                                         24. John I, Count of La Marche               12. Louis, Count of Vendôme                       25. Catherine de Vendôme               6. Jean VIII, Count of Vendôme                             26. Guy XIII de Laval               13. Jeanne of Laval                       27. Anne de Laval               3. Jeanne de Bourbon-Vendôme                                   28. Pierre de Beauveau               14. Louis de Beauvau                       29. Jeanne de Craon               7. Isabelle de Beauvau                             30. Ferry V de Chambley               15. Marguerite de Chambley                       31. Jeanne de Lannoy

References

1. Stuart, Marie W., The Scot who was a Frenchman, the Life of John Stewart, Duke of Albany, William Hodge (1940), 295.
2. Stuart, Marie W., The Scot who was a Frenchman, the Life of John Stewart Duke of Albany, William Hodge (1940), 22.
3. Stuart, Marie W., The Scot who was a Frenchman, the Life of John Stewart, Duke of Albany, William Hodge (1940), 172.
4. Manuscript c1505 with pictures of Auvergne castles belonging to Anne de la tour Princesse d'Ecossse. (Hague, KB, 74 G 11)
5. Généalogie fabuleuse d'Anne de La Tour, BNF Fr. 20209
6. Stuart, Marie W., The Scot who was a Frenchman, (1940), 293: Luneau, Jean-François, Revue de l'Art, vol. 107, (1995), 17-26, "Les Vitraux de la Sainte-Chapelle de Vic-le-Comte".