Eleanor (Navarre)
Eleanor of Navarre (Spanish Leonor ; * February 2, 1425 , † February 12, 1479 in Tudela ), also called Eleanor of Aragon , was since 1464 "legitimate Queen of Navarre" and from January 19, 1479 for three weeks actual Queen of Navarre .
Life
Eleanor was the younger daughter of Queen Blanka of Navarre and her second husband, John II , who had held the title of King of Navarre since 1425 due to his marriage. With her older (full) siblings Karl von Viana and Blanka von Aragón ("Blanka II.") Eleanor grew up in the magnificent castle of Olite .
On July 30, 1436, Eleonore married Gaston IV , only 11 years old , Count von Foix from the Grailly family . With this marriage, Johann II tried to gain influence in the area bordering the Pyrenees to the north .
After the death of Queen Blanka (1441), Navarre did not fall to her son Charles of Viana as planned; instead led John II. by usurpation 1441-1479 continue to the King of Navarre title. In 1441/42 Eleanor moved to the south of France to live on the territory of her husband and to marry him. Politically, she always acted in agreement with her husband and bore him a total of ten children.
In 1451 civil war broke out between Johann II and his son Karl. The latter was captured by his father in autumn 1451 and only released after almost two years. Nevertheless, John II could not achieve a final victory and in 1455 offered his daughter Eleonore and her husband to transfer the succession to the throne of Navarre instead of Charles, if the Count of Foix would provide military support to John II in return. In fact, Gaston IV then defeated Charles of Viana decisively. While the loser fled to the court of his uncle Alfonso V in Naples , John II convened the Cortes of the Agramonteses in Estella , disinherited Karl and his sister Blanka and appointed Eleonore and Gaston IV to the heir to the throne of Navarre.
After the death of Alfonso V, John II was also King of Aragón from 1458 to 1479 . His son Karl returned to Spain in 1459, but died in September 1461. Rumor has it that he was poisoned at the instigation of his stepmother Juana Enríquez , the second wife of John II. He had made his sister Blanka heir to the throne, but her father Johann II handed her over to her younger sister Eleonore. Blanka was brought across the Pyrenees to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in April 1462 and finally interned in the castle of Orthez in Béarn. She is said to have been tortured and abused in captivity and died on December 2, 1464. Many historians suspect that she was poisoned on Eleanor's orders.
Eleanor had ruled Navarre as her father's “governor” since 1455, and she was to remain in this position until his death in 1479 (apart from a brief interruption in 1469/70), until 1469 with the title “Lieutenant General of Navarre” (“Lieutenant générale de Navarre "), since 1471 as" Governor of Navarre "(" Gouvernante de Navarre "). However, she was always under the sovereignty of her father and could therefore not exercise completely independent power of government. In 1468 she and her husband tried in vain to usurp the Navarres throne from their father. On November 23, 1470, their eldest son Gaston died at a tournament; about a year and a half later she became a widow. In 1476 she met her father and her half-brother Ferdinand II, the Catholic in Viana, and obtained their consent to appoint her grandson Franz Phoebus as her heir to the throne.
On January 19, 1479, the 80-year-old John II died and Eleanor was proclaimed Queen of Navarre by the Cortes in Tudela on January 28, while Aragón went to her half-brother Ferdinand. However, she could not enjoy her new title for long, as she died just fifteen days after her coronation on February 12, 1479.
progeny
On July 30, 1436, Eleonore married Gaston IV , Count von Foix of the Grailly family . The couple had ten children:
- Gaston (1444 - 23 November 1470), 1462 Prince of Viana , Vice Count of Castelbon , Lieutenant General of Navarre, father of King Francis Phoebus and Queen Catherine of Navarre
- Pierre (February 7, 1449 - August 10, 1490), called Pierre le Jeune , Cardinal , Bishop of Vannes , Viceroy of Navarre (1479–1484)
- Jean (* after 1450, † November 5, 1500) Vice Count of Narbonne , Count of Étampes , pretender to the throne in Navarre at the death of his nephew Franz Phoebus, ⚭ 1476 Marie d'Orléans
- Marie (* after 1452, † 1467), ⚭ January 19, 1465 Wilhelm VIII., Margrave of Montferrat
- Johanna (* after 1454, † after 1476), ⚭ August 1469 in Lectoure Jean V , Count of Armagnac
- Margaret (* after 1458, † May 15, 1486), ⚭ June 27, 1471 in Clisson Francis II , Duke of Brittany
- Katharina (* after 1460, † before 1494), ⚭ 1469 Count Gaston II. De Foix-Candale
- Isabella (* after 1462)
- Eleonore (* after 1466, † young)
- Jakob (* around 1469, † 1500), Count of Montfort-l'Amaury , Viceroy of Navarre
literature
- Béatrice Leroy: Leonor 2 . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages . Vol. 5 (1991), col. 1895.
- Laura York: Eleanor of Navarre . In: Anne Commire (Ed.): Women in World History . Vol. 5 (2000), pp. 105f.
Web links
- Collection of material on Eleanor of Navarre on Mittelalter-genealogie.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ According to other sources, she was born in 1426.
- ^ Genealogy of the Toulouse nobility
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Johann I. |
Queen of Navarre 1479 |
Franz Phöbus |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Eleanor |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Eleanor of Aragon |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Queen of Navarre |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 2, 1425 |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 12, 1479 |
| Place of death | Tudela |