This is a list of those men and women who have been royal consorts of the Kingdom of Navarre. Because the laws of Navarre did not prohibit women from inheriting the crown, on a number of occasions, the Kingdom was inherited or transmitted via heiresses. Thus, whilst most of the royal consorts were women, who held the title of queen consort, several were men, who by their marriages held the title of king, and who are given regnal designations in the lists of Navarrese kings and queens regnant.
Most of these men, although granted power through marriage rather than through inheritance, nonetheless were significant or dominant in their marriages and the rule of the country; indeed, one king by marriage, John II of Navarre (who would late in life also become John II of Aragon by rightful inheritance), husband of Blanche I of Navarre, refused to surrender the crown following her death to their son, Charles of Viana, the rightful heir to the Kingdom, instead retaining the power for himself.
Vicissitudes of the crown
From 1285–1328, the crowns of Navarre and France were united by virtue of the marriage of Joan I of Navarre, Queen regnant of Navarre and queen consort of France, to King Philip IV of France (who became King-by-marriage of Navarre), and by the succession of their three sons, Louis I/X, Philip II/V, and Charles I/IV. Thus, the wives of these three Kings were Queen-consort of both France and Navarre. However, the inheritance of Navarre by Philip II/V and Charles I/IV following the death of Louis I/X, and his son John I, was, strictly speaking, against the laws of Navarre: that realm did not employ salic law, meaning that the Kingdom should have passed to Jeanne, heiress of Louis, rather than to Philip, the next male heir of Joan I. However, Jeanne being a young child still, and her uncles being of Navarrese blood, she was denied her rights until the death of Charles in 1328, at which point the male-line of Joan I died out, and Jeanne was allowed to inherit Navarre. Her husband, Philip of Évreux, became King Philip III of Navarre with his wife due to this.
Thereafter, Navarre on several occasions experienced an extinction of its ruling male line, and consequent absorption or inclusion in the lands of other families. In most cases, the beginning of a new dynasty in Navarre was preceded by the father of the new monarch serving as royal consort - the exception being the De Foix family, none of whom ever served as Navarrese consorts (due to the death of Gaston IV, Count of Foix prior to the inheritance of his wife).
In 1512–13, Upper Navarre, the portion of the Kingdom below the Pyrenees and the independent portion of the Kingdom from which the crown derived, was occupied by Spanish forces under Ferdinand the Catholic, the son of John II, and husband of Germaine de Foix (an heiress of Navarre), driving out the king and queen, John III and Catherine I. Ferdinand was proclaimed King of Navarre by the cortes there; his wife became queen consort of the realm, and thereafter the de facto queens consort of Navarre are identical with the queens consort of Spain. John and Catherine maintained claims to Navarre, which were inherited by their heirs, and their line continued to use the titles of King and Queen of Navarre; however, all that remained to them were the feudal lands they held from the French crown, and they ceased to be monarchs other than by right.
The final dynastic change was the marriage of Joan III to Antoine de Bourbon, an heir to the French throne, and the subsequent succession to the throne of their son, Henry III. He later became King of France as Henry IV, and French and Navarrese queens consort once again become one and the same. However, the Navarrese crown and lands were merged into the French crown in 1620, and thereafter the French queens consort, though honorifically still queens consort of Navarre, ceased to be so in any real sense.
Henry III of Navarre became Henry IV of France and thereafter the crown of Navarre passed to the kings of France. In 1620, the Kingdom was merged into France, although the French kings continued to use the title King of Navarre until 1791, and it was revived from 1814 to 1830 during the Restoration. In Spain (which is the actual country to where most of the territories of historical Navarre belong), the monarch uses the title King of Navarre as part of his more extended titulary.
Philip III, called the Bold, was king of France from 1270 until his death in 1285. His father, Louis IX, died in Tunis during the Eighth Crusade. Philip, who was accompanying him, returned to France and was anointed king at Reims in 1271.
Joan I was queen regnant of Navarre and countess regnant of Champagne from 1274 until 1305; she was also queen consort of France by marriage to Philip IV of France. She was the daughter of king Henry I of Navarre and Blanche of Artois.
Joan II was Queen of Navarre from 1328 until her death. She was the only surviving child of Louis X of France, King of France and Navarre, and Margaret of Burgundy. Joan's paternity was dubious because her mother was involved in a scandal, but Louis X declared her his legitimate daughter before he died in 1316. However, the French lords were opposed to the idea of a female monarch and elected Louis X's brother, Philip V, king. The Navarrese noblemen also paid homage to Philip. Joan's maternal grandmother, Agnes of France, Duchess of Burgundy, and uncle, Odo IV of Burgundy, made attempts to secure the counties of Champagne and Brie to Joan, but the French royal troops defeated her supporters. After Philip V married his daughter to Odo and granted him two counties as her dowry, Odo renounced Joan's claim to Champagne and Brie in exchange for a compensation in March 1318. Joan married Philip of Évreux, who was also a member of the French royal family.
Claude of France was a queen consort of France by marriage to Francis I. She was also ruling Duchess of Brittany from 1514. She was a daughter of the French king Louis XII of France and Anne of Brittany.
Blanche of Artois was a member of the Capetian House of Artois who, as queen dowager, held regency over the Kingdom of Navarre and the County of Champagne. She was queen of Navarre and countess of Champagne and Brie during her marriage to Henry I of Navarre. After his death she became regent in the name of their infant daughter, Joan I. She passed on the regency of Navarre to Philip III of France, her cousin and her daughter's prospective father-in-law, but retained the administration of Champagne. She later shared the government of Champagne with her second husband, Edmund Crouchback, until her daughter reached the age of majority.
John III was jure uxoris King of Navarre from 1484 until his death, as husband and co-ruler with Queen Catherine.
Philip III, called the Noble or the Wise, was King of Navarre from 1328 until his death. He was born a minor member of the French royal family but gained prominence when the Capetian main line went extinct, as he and his wife and cousin, Joan II of Navarre, acquired the Iberian kingdom and a number of French fiefs.
The House of Capet or the Direct Capetians, also called the House of France, or simply the Capets, ruled the Kingdom of France from 987 to 1328. It was the most senior line of the Capetian dynasty – itself a derivative dynasty from the Robertians. Historians in the 19th century came to apply the name "Capetian" to both the ruling house of France and to the wider-spread male-line descendants of Hugh Capet. Contemporaries did not use the name "Capetian". The Capets were sometimes called "the third race of kings". The name "Capet" derives from the nickname given to Hugh, the first Capetian King, who became known as Hugh Capet.
Gaston IV was the sovereign Viscount of Béarn and the Count of Foix and Bigorre in France from 1436 to 1472. He also held the viscounties of Marsan, Castelbon, Nébouzan, Villemeur and Lautrec and was, by virtue of the county of Foix, co-prince of Andorra. From 1447 he was also Viscount of Narbonne. Through his marriage to Eleonor, heiress of the Kingdom of Navarre, he also held the title of Prince of Navarre.
The House of Évreux was a cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty, the royal house of France, which flourished from the beginning of the 14th century to the mid 15th century. It became the royal house of the Kingdom of Navarre.
The precise style of French Sovereigns varied over the years. Currently, there is no French sovereign; three distinct traditions exist, each claiming different forms of title.
Jure uxoris describes a title of nobility used by a man because his wife holds the office or title suo jure. Similarly, the husband of an heiress could become the legal possessor of her lands. For example, married women in England and Wales were legally incapable of owning real estate until the Married Women's Property Act 1882.
The crown lands, crown estate, royal domain or domaine royal of France were the lands, fiefs and rights directly possessed by the kings of France. While the term eventually came to refer to a territorial unit, the royal domain originally referred to the network of "castles, villages and estates, forests, towns, religious houses and bishoprics, and the rights of justice, tolls and taxes" effectively held by the king or under his domination. In terms of territory, before the reign of Henry IV, the domaine royal did not encompass the entirety of the territory of the kingdom of France and for much of the Middle Ages significant portions of the kingdom were the direct possessions of other feudal lords.
After the death of the last Habsburg monarch of Spain in 1700, the childless Charles II, the Spanish throne was up for grabs between the various dynasties of Europe despite Charles having left a will naming his heir. In this will, Charles left Philip, Duke of Anjou, grandson of the French king, the possessions of the Spanish Crown.
John I, Count of Foix also known as Jean de Foix-Grailly was Count of Foix from 1428 until his death in 1436. He succeeded his mother Isabella, Countess of Foix. His father was Archambaud de Grailly.
Joan of Navarre was a princess from the French House of Évreux, the eldest child of King Philip III and Queen Joan II of Navarre.
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