Gaston IV, Count of Foix

Gaston IV, Count of Foix
Spouse(s)	Eleanor of Navarre
Noble family	House of Foix
Father	John I, Count of Foix
Mother	Jeanne d'Albret
Born	27 November 1422
Died	25 July 1472 (aged 49) Roncevalles

Seal of Gaston IV, Count of Foix

Gaston IV, Count of Foix, Viscount of Béarn (27 November 1422 – 25 July/28 July 1472) was a French nobleman from Bearn, who founded an ephemeral ruling dynasty within the Kingdom of Navarre.

He was a son of John I, Count of Foix and Jeanne d'Albret. His maternal grandparents were Charles d'Albret, Constable of France and co-commander of the French army, killed at the Battle of Agincourt, and his wife Marie de Sully.

Gaston married the Navarrese Infanta, Eleonor, in 1436.^[1] Her parents were John II and Blanche I of Navarre. At the time, Leonor appeared to have few prospects: her father was a younger son and brother of kings of Aragon, and Leonor had a brother, Charles of Viana, and an older sister, Blanca, standing between herself and the throne of Navarre. However, family dissent and death eliminated both Charles and Blanca; Leonor's father usurped the Navarrese crown, to which he added in 1458 the throne of Aragon (his older brother having died without legitimate children) and, following the deaths of Charles and Blanca, promised the succession to Navarre to Leonor and her husband in return for their loyalty to him, which was given.

They had ten children:

• Gaston de Foix (1443-1470), (sometimes called “Gaston V of Foix”), Viscount of Castelbon, Prince of Viana (1462-1470), lieutenant general of Navarre (1469).^[2]
• Jean de Foix (1446-1500), Viscount of Narbonne (1468-1500), Count d'Étampes (1478-1500). He claimed the throne of Navarre upon the death of his nephew François Phébus. He married in 1476 Marie of Orleans (1457-1493)
• Marguerite de Foix (1449-1486), married at Clisson on June 27, 1471 Francis II, Duke of Brittany. They were parents of Anne of Brittany, twice queen of France as consort to both Charles VIII and Louis XII.
• Pierre de Foix (February 7, 1449 to August 10, 1490), (sometimes called “Pierre II of Foix”), called Pierre the Young, cardinal (1576), viceroy of Navarre (1479-1484)
• Marie de Foix (c.1452-1467), married Guglielmo VIII, Marquis of Montferrat, son of Giangiacomo of Montferrat and his wife Jeanne de Savoie
• Jeanne de Foix (c.1454-c.1476), married in August 1469 in Lectoure, to Jean V of Armagnac (1420-1473).
• Catherine de Foix (c.1460-before 1494), married in 1469 Gaston de Foix, Count of Candale (c.1440-1500), (sometimes called “Gaston II of Foix”).

• Isabel de Foix (after 1462).
• Leonor de Foix (after 1466 - died young).
• Jacques de Foix, Infante de Navarra (1469-in France 1500), Count de Montfort. Married in 1485 and divorced in 1494 Ana de Peralta, daughter of Pedro de Peralta, 1st Count de Santisteban y Lerín and his second wife Isabelle de Grailly. Married secondly in 1495 Catherine de Beaumont, daughter of Louis de Beaumont, 2nd Count de Lerín and his wife Leonor de Aragón. Jacques and his second wife had one child: Jean de Foix, abbot of Saint-Volusien-de-Foix. Jacques also had two illegitimate children by unknown mistresses: Frederic de Foix (-1537), Seigneur d'Almenèches, and Jacques de Foix (-7 Apr 1535), Bishop of Oloron and Lescar.

References

1. The Cambridge Modern History, ed. A.W. Ward, G.W. Prothero and Stanley Leathes, (Macmillan Company, 1911), 84.
2. 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.