Eleanor of Navarre

Eleanor Queen of Navarre Reign 28 January 1479 – 12 February 1479 Coronation 28 January 1479 Predecessor John II Successor Francis Born 2 February 1426 Olite, Navarre Died 12 February 1479 (aged 53) Tudela, Navarre Spouse Gaston IV, Count of Foix Issue Gaston, Prince of Viana Peter, Bishop of Arles John, Viscount of Narbonne Marie of Navarre Margaret, Duchess of Brittany Joan, Countess of Armagnac James, Count of Cortes Catherine, Countess of Candale House House of Trastamara Father John II of Aragon Mother Blanche I of Navarre

Aragonese, Valencian and Sicilian Royalty House of Trastámara Ferdinand I    Alfonso V    John II    Eleanor, Queen of Portugal Alfonso V John II    Charles IV of Navarre    Blanche II of Navarre    Eleanor I of Navarre    Ferdinand II    Joan, Queen of Naples Ferdinand II    Isabella, Queen of Portugal    Joanna I, Queen of Aragon    John, Prince of Asturias    Mary, Queen of Portugal    Catherine, Queen of England Joanna I

Eleanor of Aragon (Spanish: Leonor) (2 February 1426 – 12 February 1479),^[1] Regent (1455–1479) and the queen regnant of Navarre in 1479. She was crowned on 28 January 1479 in Tudela.^[2]

Life

Coat of arms of Queen Eleanor

She was born in Olite, Navarre (now Spain), the third and youngest child of King John II of Aragon and Queen Blanche I of Navarre and the younger sister of Blanche II of Navarre.^[3] She was born 2 February 1426, and was acclaimed by the Cortes in Pamplona, 9 August 1427, as the legitimate heir of Charles IV, and Blanche II in succession to their mother. After their mother's death, however, their father occupied Navarre.

She married Gaston IV, Count of Foix, in 1441.^[4] In 1442, Eleanor moved with her spouse to Bearn. In 1455, her father deposed her brother and her sister as heirs of Navarre and proclaimed Eleanor as the heir and the regent and general governor of Navarre, and she moved to Sangüesa. She continued as regent after the death of her brother in 1461. In 1462, she signed the treaty of Olite, where she recognized her father as the monarch of Navarre and accepted to have her sister Blanche imprisoned under her care. In 1464, Blanche died in her care, suspected to have been poisoned. By the treaty, she was recognized by her father as the heir of Navarre and his regent (governor) in Navarre. In 1468, her father killed her advisor Nicolas de Chavarri, and deposed her as governor. In 1471, however, her father recognized her as the governor of Navarre until his death. At her father's death in 1479, she gave her oath as the monarch of Navarre, and died two weeks later, at Tudela, Navarre, aged 53.

Marriage and children

In 1441, she married Gaston IV, count of Foix, and had the following children with him:

• Gaston (1444–1470), he married Magdalena of France in 1462 and their children Francis and Catherine both succeeded to Navarre in turn upon the death of their grandmother Eleanor^[5]
• Peter (1449–1490), cardinal and bishop of Arles
• John (1450–1500), viscount of Narbonne, whose daughter Germaine of Foix was second wife to Ferdinand II of Aragon,
• Marie (1452–1467), married William VIII, marquess of Montferrat
• Margaret of Foix (1453–1486), married Francis II, duke of Brittany
• Joan (1454–1476), married John V, count of Armagnac
• James (1455–1500), count of Cortes, married Catherine of Beaumont
• Catherine (b. 1455), married Gaston II de Foix, Count of Candale and Benauges

Ancestry

16. Henry II of Castile (= #14)

8. John I of Castile

17. Juana Manuel (= #15)

4. Ferdinand I of Aragon

18. Peter IV of Aragon

9. Eleanor of Aragon

19. Eleanor of Sicily

2. John II of Aragon

20. Alfonso XI of Castile (= #28)

10. Sancho Alfonso, 1st Count of Alburquerque

21. Eleanor of Guzman (= #29)

5. Eleanor of Alburquerque

22. Peter I of Portugal

11. Infanta Beatrice of Portugal

23. Inês de Castro

1. Eleanor of Navarre

24. Philip III of Navarre

12. Charles II of Navarre

25. Joan II of Navarre

6. Charles III of Navarre

26. John II of France

13. Joan of Valois

27. Bonne of Bohemia

3. Blanche I of Navarre

28. Alfonso XI of Castile (= #20)

14. Henry II of Castile (= #16)

29. Eleanor of Guzman (= #21)

7. Eleanor of Castile

30. Juan Manuel, Prince of Villena

15. Juana Manuel (= #17)

31. Blanca de La Cerda y Lara

References

1. cf. Anthony (1931)
2. see Anthony (1931)
3. The Cambridge Modern History, ed. A.W. Ward, G.W. Prothero and Stanley Leathes, (Macmillan Company, 1911), 80.
4. The Cambridge Modern History, 84.
5. 1494: Hieronymous Munzer, Compostela, and the Codex Calixtinus, Jeanne E. Krochalis, The Pilgrimage to Compostela in the Middle Ages, ed. Maryjane Dunn and Linda Kay Davidson, (Routledge, 1996), 96.

Bibliography

• Anthony, Raoul: Identification et Etude des Ossements des Rois de Navarre inhumés dans la Cathédrale de Lescar (Identification and Study of the Bones of the Kings of Navarre buried at the Cathedral of Lescar), Paris, Masson, 1931

External links

• Navarre Kings Genealogy