Margaret of Navarre

Timeline

1. 1492–1525Angoulême · CharenteBorn at Angoulême, she and her brother François (the future king) both received a humanist education from their mother Louise of Savoy. In 1509 she married Charles IV, Duke of Alençon, becoming an important court figure active in literary and theological circles. After her brother's capture in 1525 she traveled to Madrid to visit him, showing steadfast sibling devotion.
2. 1527–1540Nérac · Lot-et-GaronneAfter the Duke of Alençon died in 1525, she married Henry II, King of Navarre, in 1527, becoming queen. She turned the Nérac court into a haven for humanism and the Reformation, sheltering persecuted reformist scholars. In 1531 she published the religious poetry collection Miroir de l'âme pécheresse, later condemned by the faculty of theology and saved only through her brother's intervention.
3. 1540–1549Odos · Hautes-PyrénéesIn her later years she devoted herself to the Heptameron, a collection of short stories on love and morality modeled on Boccaccio, unfinished at her death and published posthumously. In 1547 she published the poetry collection Les Marguerites de la Marguerite des Princesses. She died at Odos on 21 December 1549, regarded as one of the most important female intellectuals of the French Renaissance.