To begin Joan's story, we need to place her in the context of her family. While this means momentarily losing sight of Joan herself, running counter to our goal of keeping her in the picture at all times and narrating the events of the period from her perspective, this familial context is necessary to understand her own significance and how her blood and marital connections defined the whole of her life. Once her dynastic ties have been thoroughly explored in terms of both her immediate ancestors and contemporary family members, we will then explore her childhood years as an infanta in her native land among her Navarrese family—her siblings, aunts, cousins, and her father, the infamous Carlos II. We will then focus on Carlos and the challenging situation of Navarre during the early years of the Hundred Years War. This situation was made challenging by both the international political turbulence and the impact of Carlos II's own actions, earning him the sobriquet of “el Malo” or “the Bad”. Again, this means taking our eye off Joan momentarily, but this political context provides a foundation for the final section of this chapter, the political alliance between Navarre and Brittany which created her first marriage, to Jean IV, in 1386. We will end the chapter as Joan made her transition from infanta to duchess, sailing up the Bay of Biscay to a new life in Brittany.
In a later chapter we will focus on Joan's “networks of service”, examining the men and women who served her in her household and administered the vast holdings of land that Joan accrued in both Brittany and England. Here we examine Joan's other networks—her familial ones through both blood and marriage. Both networks were vital to every aspect of her life. Joan's familial networks gave her position and status—she was born an infanta of Navarre, the daughter of a king and a descendant of an illustrious Franco-Iberian royal lineage. Her wide-ranging dynastic ties gave her further prestige, making her a desirable bride for Jean IV and Henry IV, which in turn made her a duchess and later a queen. Her connections to royal houses across Western Europe gave her potential influence—but also, as we will see, in later life made her loyalties suspect when her relations by blood and marriage were on the opposite sides of conflict. Indeed, given the context of the Hundred Years War, which dominated the political aspects of Joan's career and permeated the personal aspects of her life as well, various branches of her family were always on different sides of campaigns and factions, meaning that her loyalties were constantly strained and torn.
Joan of Navarre was blessed with a large, well-connected family as the chart of her family connections demonstrates (see Fig. 0.1). She was the daughter, granddaughter, niece, and cousin of kings and emperors. She carried Capetian blood in her veins through both sides of her family and was closely related to the Valois kings of France as well as the Holy Roman emperors of the House of Luxembourg, who were also the kings of Bohemia. She was also connected to the most powerful nobles of France, the dukes of Burgundy, Berry, and Orleans, as well as the counts of Foix and Armagnac in the Midi or southwest of France. Through the marriages of her family, as well as her English stepchildren, she could claim links to Castile, Aragon, Portugal, and the united kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, as well as the dukes of Milan and the kingdom of Naples.
Joan's extended family was her greatest asset, but while her lineage and connections elevated her into positions of power, her family ties often meant she had connections on both sides of serious conflicts. Later chapters will touch on the extended conflict in France, first between the partisans of the dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, and later between those of Burgundy and Armagnac—Joan was closely related to all parties by both blood and marriage. As we will see in this chapter, her father, Carlos II “the Bad”, spent many years in opposition to Joan's maternal grandfather, the French king Jean II “the Good”. The root of this conflict was another distinctive feature of Joan's ancestry—one which may in part account for her willingness to fight for her rights and position when under threat and her general political engagement—the legacy of regnant queenship. Joan's grandmother and great-great-grandmother were both regnant queens of Navarre, Juana I and II. Juana I married Philip IV of France and their marriage brought about the personal union of the two crowns which remained during the reign of their eldest son, Louis X of France and I of Navarre. When Louis died in 1316, his only living child at that point was his daughter Jeanne—while there is insufficient space to fully discuss the Capetian succession crisis that followed, we can quickly summarise it by noting that Jeanne was bypassed by both of her uncles in turn who became Philip V (and II of Navarre) and Charles IV (and I of Navarre).1 In 1328, when both Philip and Charles had died leaving only female surviving issue, it was decided that the French throne would fall to the Valois, a subsidiary branch of the Capetian dynasty and that Jeanne would take the Navarrese throne as Juana II with her husband, Philip d’Evreux, starting the House of Evreux-Navarre of which Joan was a member. To prevent further squabbles between the Capetian princesses and their husbands and to block the accession of Edward III of England, whose mother Isabella was the daughter of Juana I and Philip IV, it was decided to block both female and female-line claimants to the French throne. Yet neither Juana II nor her son Carlos II forgot her claim to the French throne—these pretensions and sense of pride in his Capetian blood (which also came through his father's Evreux line) both motivated Carlos's foreign policy and provided his daughter with a keen sense of her own royal position.
Joan was named for these regnant queens of Navarre and also for her mother Jeanne de Valois, born in June 1343 to Jean II of France and Bonne of Luxembourg, daughter of the king of Bohemia and sister of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV. Jeanne was a very politically active queen who was deeply engaged as both a diplomat between her husband and her Valois family and as a regent or lieutenant in both Carlos's Iberian and French domains. While Jeanne died in 1373, when only 30 years of age and during Joan's infancy, she provided another example of active queenship for Joan to model herself on, alongside her ancestors the regnant queens and her influential aunts who we will discuss further shortly.
The marriage of Joan's parents was continually under threat and strain from the political situation and dynastic discord. Carlos II and Jeanne de Valois were married in an intimate, yet suitably resplendent, wedding in early 1352 at Vivier-en-Brie, when Jeanne was only eight years old.2 Due to the bride's young age and the wider political situation, including a dispute between Jeanne's husband and father over her dowry, the couple were separated until 1360. While their reunion resulted in the birth in July 1361 of their son and heir, who would become Carlos III, and the birth of six further children including Joan herself, from Philippe Charon's comparison of their movements, it is clear that they were frequently separated during their nearly 20-year marriage. Indeed, Carlos was even accused of causing his wife's death by poison, necessitating an autopsy of the queen's body and the affidavit of his sister, Agnes countess of Foix, to verify that Jeanne had died of natural causes.3 Yet Charon also argues that Carlos and Jeanne had a strong relationship, citing Carlos's trust in Jeanne as his regent, gifts sent from Carlos, and Jeanne's impassioned plea to free her husband during his imprisonment after the battle of Najera in 1367, as well as the seven children that they had together as evidence of a firm conjugal bond.4
Yet even if the marriage of Jeanne de Valois and Carlos II had been a good one, their conjugal bond did not prevent Carlos from taking mistresses and producing illegitimate children. Given their frequent separations, Jeanne's early death, and Carlos's decision not to remarry for the remaining 14 years of his life, his liaisons with other women are perhaps less surprising. However, both of Carlos's illegitimate children appear to have been born after his wife's death, indicating perhaps that his liaisons may have been a way of finding companionship as a widower rather than an indication of an unhappy marriage or a means to find companionship during their times apart. Carlos had two “natural” children, Juana, born c. 1374 to Catalina de Esparza, and Leonel, born c. 1378/9 to Catalina de Lizaso. Fernando Videgain Agos notes that both children were recognised, well cared for, and honoured by Carlos II.5 His legitimate son and heir, Carlos III, treated both Leonel and Juana with respect and affection as members of his extended family. Leonel made an advantageous marriage and was named Vizconde de Murzabal, a position which came with substantial lands and revenues, and was also given the position of Mariscal del Reino. Leonel also left several illegitimate children—one of which, Felipe de Navarra, married the noblewoman Juana de Peralta and was also made Mariscal del Reino by Carlos III in 1424. Leonel's descendants continued to hold this position until the middle of the sixteenth century. Carlos II's illegitimate daughter Juana was consistently referred to in records from Carlos III's reign as the sister of the king and resided for an extensive period in the royal court, eventually marrying Juan de Béarn, baron de Beortegui, in 1397.
The illegitimate children of royal families have not been consistently or universally welcomed in dynastic history. Some kings have chosen not to acknowledge children born out of wedlock or have deliberately kept them in obscurity, to minimise the chances that they might prove any threat to the line of succession or legitimate siblings. Yet in Navarre, the preferment shown to illegitimate offspring demonstrates that they were valued for their royal blood as they were promoted through titles, service, and marriages which established them as important nobles in their own right, and they were allowed to use the royal coats of arms on their seals and devises. There appears to have been little stigma attached to their illegitimate ancestry, with the exception that they were not considered to be eligible for the succession to the throne. Yet while they were barred from the succession, in Navarre royal bastards were vitally important for dynastic service and building connections with the nobility as they formed strategic marriages with several houses, giving them a “preeminent role” in the realm.6 Later, when Joan became queen of England, she came into contact with the Beauforts, the half-siblings of her husband Henry IV, who had been legitimised by his father John of Gaunt and also played a key role in the politics of the realm, and even, at the end of the fifteenth century, in the succession to the throne itself.
In the same generation as Joan and her half-siblings was another group of exalted royal bastards known as the Beaumonts, who were the children of Carlos II's brother Luis of Navarre, count of Beaumont-le-Roger. It is from this French title that the surname or sobriquet of de Beaumont for his illegitimate children derived, although the lands of the county and the title reverted to Carlos II on Luis's death in 1376 and was not granted to Luis's illegitimate offspring.7 Luis of Navarre played an important part in Navarrese and European politics, as regent for Carlos II's French territories and later as the husband of Jeanne de Durazzo, a claimant for the throne of Naples. In addition to Luis's political acumen, he also gained a reputation as a womaniser—though he had no legitimate offspring with his Angevin wife, he left several illegitimate children. Videgain Agos commented that Luis never missed an opportunity for illicit relationships—apparently he had an eye for the ladies and a love of the hunt.8
Carlos was only one of Luis of Navarre's illegitimate children; his siblings Tristan and Juana were also born from Luis's relationship with Maria de Lizarazu, a Navarrese noblewoman who was accorded a level of respect as Luis's virtual wife, even referred to as Condesa or countess.9 Carlos was likely born c. 1361 and it appears that he was the middle sibling, between his sister Juana who was born in 1359 and Tristan who may have been born c. 1363.10 Carlos and his siblings were left in Navarre when their father departed for Italy and Albania to advance his position as duke of Durazzo, which he gained through marriage to the Neapolitan heiress; both Carlos and his sister Juana spent part of their early years in Estella—a key location for the education of royal offspring, including Joan herself as we will discuss shortly.11
There were no guarantees for Carlos de Beaumont and his siblings—as the illegitimate offspring of a royal prince, not the king himself, they were arguably more obscure and their father's death in 1376 left them without a clear protector, barring perhaps Juana who had been wed to Pées, Pedro, or Pey de Laxague in 1373.12 Yet their uncle Carlos II treated them with both grace and favour and Beaumont was promoted in royal service to become alferez in 1379—the king noted that this appointment “certified to the good virtues, loyalty, mind [intelligence] and diligence of his beloved and loyal nephew”.13 He was also made castellan of St Jean Pied-de-Port in the same year, when he was likely only 18 years of age. In the same year, his younger brother Tristan was made a canon in the Cathedral of Pamplona—Carlos II had already generously funded his education after the death of the Infante Luis. In December 1381, Carlos II bestowed the palace and lordship of d’Asiain on his nephew and alferez Carlos de Beaumont—another sign of royal favour.14
The post of alferez was a key position with administrative, military, and diplomatic duties and Beaumont continued to serve Carlos III in this role after his accession in 1387. Although many of these diplomatic missions involved negotiations with Navarre's neighbours France, Aragon, and Castile, Beaumont's role also necessitated working with the English kings and their emissaries. Indeed Beaumont's earliest diplomatic missions involved England as part of an embassy to the English king Richard II in 1378 to negotiate the complicated situation regarding the possession of Cherbourg.15 Beaumont appears to have made a favourable impression on Richard, as the king granted his request in December 1382 that Beaumont's brother-in-law, Pey/Pedro de Laxague, be allowed to build a sizable fortified house—this may be the building known as the “Maison Forte” of Gentein.16 In the spring of 1385, Beaumont visited England on yet another diplomatic mission, which was probably tied to the situation in Cherbourg. Clearly he continued to be in Richard's good graces as in the same year the English king granted Beaumont the care and revenues of the castle of Mauléon and the vicomté de Soule and agreed to release the prisoner Tetbaut (Thibaut) de Poyloaut to the “mainprise” of Beaumont and his associates.17 We will return to Beaumont's career in future chapters as he continued to play a major role in Anglo-Navarrese relations, as an international power broker and during Joan's tenure as queen of England.
Joan's aunts and great-aunts formed a vital part of Joan's family networks, both in terms of making important connections to dynasties across Western Europe and in directly influencing the course of Joan's life—particularly her childhood and years as duchess of Brittany. While Joan had several aunts, there are four who made the greatest impact as “models” and “moulders”. The two who could be seen as “models” were her two aunts who were both dowager queens of France in Joan's lifetime, her great-aunt Jeanne d’Evreux, widow of Charles IV, and Blanca of Navarre (who will be referred to as Blanche so as not to confuse her with her niece and great niece), widow of Philip VI.18 Both queens were widows who were not the mother of the heir, as Joan herself would be later in England. As Mariah Proctor-Tiffany has demonstrated in her evaluation of the precarious widowhood of Clémence of Hungary, the second wife of Louis X of France (and I of Navarre), this could have doomed these two women to a life of financial uncertainty and obscurity.19 However, even though Jeanne and Blanche were not mothers of the heirs, they had given birth to princesses and continued to play a maternal role to stepchildren, nieces, and nephews. In this way, as Marguerite Keane notes, they were able to enact two key roles for dowager queens “which offered access to power”—that of mother and mediator.20 Both women had very long periods as dowager queens, again like Joan herself in later years—Jeanne's widowhood lasted from 1328 to 1371 and Blanche's from 1350 to 1398. Yet, these two women retained significant political influence over the decades and were well known for their cultural patronage, becoming stabilising lynchpins in a court which was in considerable flux due to dynastic change and the political upheaval caused by the outbreak of the Hundred Years War with England and internal conflict between the great princes of the realm. Indeed, María Narbona Cárceles claims that in her later years Blanche functioned as “the memory of the court”, called on for her knowledge of court ceremonial and protocol as a woman who had witnessed several coronations, including that of all the Valois queens—her own being the first of the new dynasty, making her the ideal person to organise the entry and coronation of Isabeau of Bavaria, bride of Charles VI.21
Jeanne and Blanche were close to one another and worked together to support the Navarrese cause in France—Carlos II owed a great deal to their diplomatic intervention during several periods of political crisis. Their first significant intervention came in mediating in the treaty of Mantes in 1354 and they were involved again in the treaty of Valognes in September of the following year—both treaties sought to heal the rift between Carlos II and Jean II and help to recover Carlos's patrimonial territory, which had been seized in northern France.22 When Carlos II was imprisoned by Jean II from 1356 to 1357, the two queens were able to get a safeguard to take him to Paris. In August 1358 Navarrese forces took over Melun, which was a strategic town held by Blanche as part of her dower lands and a frequent residence of hers—Keane notes that it is not clear if Blanche was an “unwilling host” or if she actually invited the troops in to help her brother's side.23 Blanche was involved in the ratification of the treaty of Pontoise in 1359 and in negotiating two further peace agreements in April 1364 and another, in concert with Jeanne d’Evreux, the following spring. Their last joint diplomatic venture was bargaining for Navarre's benefit at Vernon in March 1371, shortly before Jeanne d’Evreux's death. The combined blow of Jeanne's death and the death of Blanche's own daughter Jeanne, en route to her wedding to an Aragonese prince in the same year, heralded Blanche's semi-withdrawal from high politics.
However, Blanche continued to play an important role in serving the family, raising Carlos III in his younger years—he had been born at Mantes in France, and when Jeanne de Valois returned to Navarre in January 1363, Carlos stayed with his aunt under her tutelage until 1366 and remained close to her for the rest of his life, visiting her during his trips to France.24 The gifts Blanche left to Carlos III, and all of her surviving nieces and nephews, including Joan, in her will serve as testimony to her bond with and affection for her Navarrese family, which we will discuss further in the final chapter. In the same chapter, we will also discuss how Blanche also served as a model for Joan in terms of patronage, particularly in terms of the collection of books—Blanche, Jeanne d’Evreux, and Joan's grandmothers, Juana II and Bonne of Luxembourg, all set a template of queenly cultural patronage for Joan to follow. In sum, both Jeanne and Blanche were eminently respected for their political acumen, effective diplomacy, and influential cultural patronage—their example served as a model of dowager queenship that other royal women, particularly their niece Joan, sought to emulate.
Next, we turn from these “model” aunts to two other aunts who had important influence on Joan as “moulders”, Agnes, countess of Foix, and Juana, viscountess of Rohan. The latter, the youngest of Joan's aunts, will be discussed further in the following chapter as a significant figure during Joan's tenure as duchess of Brittany. Juana, who was married to a prominent Breton noble, was a key proponent of a marriage between her niece and duke Jean IV, and once Joan was successfully installed in Brittany, her aunt's presence in the duchy arguably helped “mould” Joan from a Navarrese infanta into a Breton duchess.
Here, we will focus more on Agnes, who in many ways filled the role of mother to Joan during her childhood and thus played a crucial part in “moulding” Joan in her youth. Before discussing Joan's early years and Agnes's role in them, it is important to briefly explain the unusual circumstances which led to Agnes re-joining the Navarrese court. While some women chose to return to their native land if they were widowed, this was not the case for Agnes—rather she was repudiated by her husband, Gaston Fébus, count of Foix, in 1362. Agnes and Gaston had married in August 1349, but the death of Agnes's mother, the regnant queen Juana II, later that year from the Black Death left a problem which poisoned the marriage. Juana had been unable to pay all of Agnes's dowry before she died and Carlos II's subsequent political challenges meant his money was needed for military campaigns rather than his sister's dowry payments. The couple lived in relative harmony for a dozen years but in 1362 a series of events brought their marriage to a shocking end. The first two events were ostensibly positive ones—the birth of a long-awaited heir, also named Gaston, in September, and an impressive victory in early December at Launac against Gaston Fébus’ great regional rival, the count of Armagnac. Yet by Christmas he had sent his half-brother Arnaud-Guilhem to inform Agnes that she would be departing for Pamplona immediately, not to return unless she had the money to pay the remainder of her dower. Fébus’ biographer Vernier argues that Agnes's surprising dismissal should be seen as motivated by personal reasons, as it was a very imprudent move politically which would gain the count nothing, noting it was likely that “a private estrangement between a husband and his wife, and a sudden impulse to end a situation that had become intolerable” was the real basis behind Fébus’ vindictive actions.25 According to Agnes's 1391 account of the situation, she was not only sent off in the dead of winter, but forced to abandon most of the personal items and jewellery that she had packed to take with her, and was only allowed to take her underclothes, one tapestry, and a dozen silver cups.
More importantly, perhaps, she also had to abandon her newborn son, the young Gaston. His story is also worth a brief digression here as it speaks both to the Navarrese political situation and the reputation of Joan's father, Carlos II. While Agnes was not allowed to return to her husband's court at Orthez, her son was permitted to visit her twice during his teens, in 1375 and 1378.26 According to Froissart's famous chronicle, during this last visit Carlos II supplied young Gaston with a poison that he told his nephew was a love potion guaranteed to affect a reconciliation between his parents.27 To truncate the story down to its bare bones, when he returned to Orthez the prince was found out before he was able to administer the poison and put in prison where his father Gaston Fébus accidentally killed him during an interrogation, even though he promised his lords that young Gaston would be spared. While Froissart's account is both over-dramatic, inconsistent in places, and may not be completely accurate, Fébus’ biographer Richard Vernier notes that there are three fundamental facts which are also reflected in the chronicle: an attempt was made on Fébus’ life, the lords were consulted about the situation, and Fébus either killed his son himself or had him killed.28 However it took place, the repudiation of Agnes “had undoubtedly lit the slow fuse that would, seventeen years later, set off the deadly explosion”, tragically culminating in the death of young Gaston.29
In terms of trying to understand this complicated situation, Pierre Tucoo-Chala has argued that Fébus was so empowered by the combination of the birth of an heir and victory over his rival that he felt able to sever ties with Navarre. Indeed, Tucoo-Chala has argued that Agnes's repudiation signalled “a complete political rupture between Orthez and Pamplona”.30 But while Richard Vernier agrees that Fébus may have felt liberated by his great victory over Armagnac in 1362, which may have partially inspired his actions, he notes that there was not an actual break between Navarre and Foix-Béarn after Agnes's return, mostly likely because Carlos II was not in position to add to his list of enemies nor in a position to make a military strike to avenge his sister. Yet even if Carlos could not strike at Gaston Fébus in a military or overt political sense, in Froissart's version of events, he still took revenge as a brutal poisoner who worked through his own nephew, putting him in harm's way as the unwitting agent of his assassination attempt. Froissart ends his tale of the death of the young Gaston by claiming “it was his father who accidentally killed him, but his real assassin was the King of Navarre”.31 Froissart had also claimed that Carlos had poisoned Charles V of France and this story lent considerable weight to Carlos's dark reputation as a poisoner or even a necromancer—a “black legend” which would later rebound on his daughter Joan.
Happily, after all the trauma of her departure from Orthez, Agnes's arrival in Pamplona led to the development of a deep personal bond with her sister-in-law, Jeanne de Valois, and they became constant companions. Agnes even travelled with the Navarrese queen on her last trip to France in 1373. Signs of Jeanne's esteem and affection for Agnes include the purchase of a new crown garnished with pearls and precious stones to replace the one Agnes left behind in Orthez. Jeanne also was willing to donate 3,000 livres towards the repayment of Agnes's dowry and worked with Fébus’ mother, Alienor de Comminges, to try to work out a financial settlement which would enable a reunion of the count and countess, though Alienor's death scuppered their plans.32
Agnes's arrival at the Navarrese court in early 1363 enabled her to have a major impact on the upbringing of her nieces and nephews, including Joan, as she was in situ for all of their births, bar that of Carlos III, which had already occurred in 1361. Joan was the sixth child of Carlos II and Jeanne de Valois, after Carlos III, the short-lived Felipe, Maria, Pedro, and Blanca, who were all born between 1361 and 1368, although the exact dating and order is not completely concrete. Nor is the date of Joan's own birth—we know that she was born in Navarre, possibly at Estella, as Jeanne de Valois was based in the kingdom between 1366 and 1373. Jeanne spent much of this time ruling Navarre in her husband's stead, particularly during June 1369–September 1372 when Carlos II had gone back to France to negotiate over the return of his territories there. During this period—in Joan's infancy—Jeanne proved to be an effective regent during a very challenging political period. The queen defended the realm “with energy” against a possible Castilian invasion, signing an alliance with the king of Aragon, repairing defences and fortifications on the Castilian border, contracting mercenaries to supplement their forces, and putting down a revolt in the Ultrapuertos region in the north of the kingdom.33 Jeanne ultimately prevented war with their Castilian neighbours by participating in peace negotiations brokered by the Pope and her brother Charles V. Jeanne's last political assignment was returning to France for further diplomatic negotiations with her Valois relatives in 1373.
Jeanne de Valois’ last three children—daughters Blanca, Joan, and Bona were all born between 1366 and 1373. The exact dates can be hard to define as the births of princesses were not as heralded as those of potential heirs; for example, the contemporary Navarrese chronicle of Garcia d’Eugui comments on the birth of Joan's brothers Carlos and Pedro but does not mention any of their sisters.34 Blanca was likely born in 1367 or 1368 and Joan shortly after in 1368 or 1369. Bona, named for Jeanne de Valois’ mother, Bonne of Luxembourg, was most likely born in 1373 considering that Carlos II was gone from June 1369 until September 1372. Indeed, the most likely scenario is that Jeanne died as a result of complications from giving birth to Bona—she was pregnant when she left Navarre in 1373 and according to the Chronique des quatre premiers Valois the queen died of “mal d’enfanter” or difficulties in childbirth.35
The first reference to Joan is also somewhat unclear—in 1369 there is a record of payment for the expenses of educating two girls at the Convent of Santa Clara at Estella, and one florin daily set aside for a teacher and a servant for them. One of these girls was Juana de Beaumont, natural daughter of Joan's uncle Luis of Navarre as noted previously, and the other was for one of Carlos II's own daughters. However, while the original document notes that this infanta was named Isabel, José Ramón Castro has listed this royal daughter as Joan instead in the calendared version of these records, known as the Catálogo.36 There are two likely possibilities here: one is, as there is no clear indication in the records that this “Isabel” did exist, that the child referred to here was mostly likely Joan instead, or it is possible that Joan may have even been originally named Isabel and later called Joan after her mother's death. Whichever scenario was the case, it would make perfect sense that Joan was sent to the Clarissan convent at Estella during her childhood, as it was, as Nelly Ongay calls it, “un espacio feminino por excelencia”, with a tradition of educating royal daughters.37 While Joan may have had visits from her mother as an infant during Jeanne de Valois’ period as regent, it is unlikely that Joan was able to create a lasting bond with her before the queen left the kingdom in the spring of 1373, never to return. Joan's aunt Agnes, who had accompanied Jeanne de Valois on her final journey to France and had been with her at her death, returned alone to Navarre in 1374 and became a mother figure to Joan and the other infantes. Agnes became the head of the household “of the Infantas”, which included Joan's sisters Maria and Blanca and later also encompassed the two eldest daughters of Carlos III, Juana and Maria.38
The surviving records from this household are not complete during Joan's youth but do cover 1375–1377, when Joan was approximately six to nine years old and give almost complete coverage for Joan's last few years in the kingdom from the beginning of 1383 until her departure for her wedding on 27 July 1386, with the exception of 1385.39 These records, along with their extensive analysis by Nelly Ongay, give an excellent idea of Joan's life and particularly her movements during her youth. In keeping with the itinerant nature of the Navarrese court itself, which was fairly typical of royal courts generally in the later Middle Ages, Joan and the infantas moved around the kingdom with some regularity. The household accounts note their daily location so we can track her movements—the place where the household was most frequently based in these accounts was Olite, where the household was in residence in July 1376, January 1377, late 1384, and early 1386. Olite was a principal residence of the Navarrese kings which Carlos II increasingly began to favour from 1372 and later it was developed by Carlos III into a spectacular Gothic palace, which has been restored in recent years as a key site associated with Navarre's medieval heritage.40 In addition to Olite, we can see the household's peregrinations to other major royal palaces such as Estella, Tafalla, and Pamplona, as well as residences at Tiebas, Puente la Reina, Peralta, Caparroso, and Monreal.
The household accounts also reveal that while the infantas were based with their aunt Agnes, they also spent considerable time with their father, joining the king's household at several periods. During some of these periods, Agnes is not listed for one or two days at various points, suggesting that she may have taken some time away from the household, perhaps to visit sacred sites or have some respite from her duties as the infantas’ virtual mother. While the infantas are often covered by the sweeping “Madame de Foix et nos dames”, which groups the infantas together as “our ladies” in the daily summaries, changes to this phrasing can indicate some interesting possibilities. For example, there are periods when only Agnes and Joan are listed, such as a period in Monreal in late January and early February 1384, and on 25–26 January 1383, Agnes and Joan were briefly hosted by the king. Joan's departure for her wedding can be securely dated to 27 July 1386 by a change in this phrasing to indicate that only “Madame de Foix” and “Madame Maria” were present from 28 July.
Details from the household accounts can also give us an idea of what the infantas’ life was like and the people who surrounded them, such as Agnes's confessor Father Guillaume (or Guilhem) who is noted in all the accounts. Ongay's detailed analysis of the account books breaks down the food consumed by the household of the infantas, noting that they ate a substantial amount of meat, fish, and poultry and that their rich diet underlined their privileged status as members of the royal family.41 The detail of the expenses for the infantas reveals purchases of new shoes and clothes as they grew, medicines and the services of doctors and “barbers” when they were ill, purchases of paper and ink for their studies and letters, religious offerings made for feast days, and other more intimate details. For example, we know that Joan kept birds as pets as a child and later she kept them as an adult and gifted birds to others. Her father and brother kept a small royal menagerie at Pamplona which included at various points a mockingjay, a parrot, a pair of lions, a camel, a monkey, and an ostrich.42 Joan and her sisters also had pet dogs—on 26 March 1386 there is the note of a purchase of “un petit chien pour nos dames” or “a little dog for our ladies”, which may have added to the other small dogs who are noted elsewhere in the records.43 Ongay's summary paints a colourful picture of the lives of Joan and her sisters: “The princesses lived, grew, prayed, visited sanctuaries, were entertained by performers, amused themselves with special birds and their food gave them an adequate diet for them to thrive”.44
Altogether, through the limited but interesting evidence left to us, it appears that Joan had a good start in life—while her mother died before she was able to get to know her, she would have been raised with Jeanne de Valois’ legacy as an active and able queen who had been deeply engaged in the administration and politics of the realm, ruling in tandem with Carlos II in a style similar to the cooperative “Team Players” mode of Carlos's parents, Juana II and Philip d’Evreux.45 Joan also had the models of her aunts Jeanne d’Evreux and Blanche of Navarre—who also would have been held up to her as an example of effective queenship as consorts and dowagers. Closer to home, Joan was raised by her aunt Agnes, who might have lavished the love and care on her nieces the infantas that she was denied giving to her own son Gaston who remained in Orthez. Joan would have met the young Gaston on his two fateful visits to Navarre and was raised with her sisters and cousins, both legitimate and illegitimate. She was educated both by the Poor Clares at Estella who began a lifelong connection with the Franciscan order and by her aunts as “models” and “moulders”. Finally, she would have had the example of her father, the infamous Carlos “the Bad”, in front of her as she grew and would have learned from both his successes and mistakes—in our next section, we will summarise the political situation of Navarre during Joan's childhood and consider the impact that it had on her first marriage and her long-term trajectory.
As alluded to throughout this chapter, the reign of Joan's father, Carlos II, was fraught with political challenges due in part to his own rivalries and ambitions and also from wider conflict between his allies and enemies in France, Iberia, and England. While it is not feasible to fully explore these here, we will briefly consider how these political affairs impacted both Joan's childhood and set in motion the events which led to her first marriage with Jean IV of Brittany, which will form the final section of this chapter.
Maria Raquel García Arancon summarises the political events of Carlos II's reign into three distinct phases.46 The first phase of his reign, from his accession in 1349, began at peace with the king of France, Philip VI, who became his brother-in-law when he married Carlos's sister Blanche (who was originally betrothed to his son Jean) in 1350. Philip's death shortly thereafter brought Jean II to the throne—while Jean became Carlos's father-in-law when he married Jeanne de Valois in 1352, the tension between the French and Navarrese kings steadily rose, erupting in 1354 with the murder of Jean's favourite, Carlos de la Cerda (or Charles of Spain), in which Carlos II was deeply involved. As noted earlier, the French dowager queens Jeanne d’Evreux and his sister Blanche worked to try to heal the divisions between Jean II and Carlos II and tried to mitigate Carlos's imprisonment in 1356 for plotting against the French king with the English. Ironically, Jean II was taken prisoner himself in the same year and held by the English—although he was released in 1360 to collect bail, he later died in London in 1364 after returning to fulfil the terms of his captivity, as his hostage, Prince Louis, had escaped and his ransom had not yet been fully paid.
Joan was born in the middle of the second phase of Carlos II's reign which began with the death of Jean II and the accession of Charles V, his cousin and brother-in-law. This phase began with a difficult defeat for Carlos II and his English/Gascon allies at the hands of the French at Cocherel on 16 May 1364, which led to the loss of his territories in France.47 This perhaps forced Carlos II to reorient himself towards Iberia, where in neighbouring Castile a war was being fought between Pedro “the Cruel” and his half-brother Enrique de Trastámara over the throne. Carlos II initially sought to remain neutral in the Castilian civil war and in the Papal Schism which opened up in 1378—Béatrice Leroy has noted that Carlos's shifts from neutrality to allegiance or shifts in allegiance have given him the reputation of being a wily, faithless politician immersed in double jeux, or double dealing. Instead, Leroy claims that both Carlos II and his son were not duplicitous but engaged in a skilful political strategy of “politique de bascule” or rocking from side to side based on their changing interests and the ever-shifting political landscape.48
A key period here was the 1370s, which coincides with the early years of Joan's childhood. As noted, in 1378 the Papal Schism opened when Gregory XI died, leading to the election of Urban VI under pressure from the Romans to elect an Italian pope after a string of popes who had been based at Avignon during the so-called “Babylonian Captivity”. The French cardinals disavowed Urban and returned to Avignon where they elected Clement VIII instead. This had radical repercussions for European politics as divisions arose between those who supported the Roman pope or the Avignonese “anti-pope”. While Carlos II initially chose a degree of neutrality, Carlos III became a strong adherent of Avignon, particularly during the reign of the Aragonese “Papa Luna”, Benedict XIII. The French also chose to adhere to the Avignon anti-pope, but the English chose allegiance to the pope in Rome—Carlos II's initial reluctance to choose papal allegiance may have been part of his continual political oscillation between these cross-Channel rivals.
Carlos II's initial neutrality in the Castilian civil war had faded with a lean towards Pedro, who was supported by the English—Carlos sought to take advantage of the instability in Castile by seizing the cities of Logroño and Vitoria in 1368. As Enrique de Trastámara began to emerge as the stronger party and solidified his position against his Iberian neighbours, Carlos was forced to come to terms and sign the peace of Almazán in April 1375, losing Vitoria and Logroño but gaining a daughter-in-law, Leonor de Trastámara, who married his son, who later became Carlos III.49 Around the time that the English crown passed from the elderly Edward III to his grandson in 1377, Carlos II began secret negotiations with the English on other potential royal marriages for one of his daughters with the young king Richard II, and another potential marriage between one of his daughters and a son of John of Gaunt—or alternatively between one of Gaunt's daughters and his son Pedro.50 These negotiations are significant for multiple reasons—even though Joan is not specified here as the particular bride for either marriage, there is an irony here given that she eventually married John of Gaunt's son, Henry of Bolingbroke, and became queen of England as his wife. According to the deposition of Carlos's servant Jacques de Rue, the negotiations were well advanced and the English appeared to favour the idea of a Navarrese bride “because she was more noble and of higher lineage” than Joan's cousin, the imperial princess Anne of Bohemia, who who eventually became Richard II's wife.51
The other significant piece of these negotiations were their political repercussions—while they did not result in an Anglo-Navarrese marriage, when the French became aware of Carlos's overtures to the English, who were gearing up for another campaign against France, they responded with fury. In the path of this anger was Joan's brother, the heir Carlos, who had been dispatched to France in January 1378, along with Jacques de Rue and Pierre du Tertre, who had been involved in the negotiations with England. When Gaston Fébus alerted the king of France to the Navarrese machinations in the spring, Jacques de Rue was seized and revealed the entire plot, including the wider context of Carlos's surreptitious engagement with the English—Pierre du Tertre's eventual capture and trial provided more incriminating evidence.52 Prince Carlos was summoned to meet his uncle Charles V at Senlis, where he was informed of the discovery of Carlos II's treachery with the English and effectively became a guest/hostage of the French—his Valois blood and the prince's accommodating cooperation with his uncle prevented him from being held as a true prisoner. Charles V then began to seize several key fortresses in the Evreux-Navarre territories in Northern France, starting with Breteuil in April, where another of Joan's brothers, Pedro, was taken when the fortress fell. Carlos, Pedro, and Bona, the youngest child of Carlos II and Jeanne de Valois, who as noted earlier was likely born and remained in France after her mother's death in 1373, were all held by Charles V as leverage while he moved against Carlos II and to prevent Pedro or Bona being married off to secure alliances with the English.53 While Joan was safe at home in Navarre with her sister Maria, the two infantas may well have been missing not only their imprisoned siblings as well as their sister Blanca, who appears to have died in the same period.
The end of the 1370s proved to be a major political disaster for Carlos II, which signalled the start of the third and final phase of his political career. Carlos's attempt to craft new alliances was scuppered when his two neighbours in France and Castile worked together on a pincer move against him. In early 1378, Enrique of Castile moved in concert with his French allies, invading Navarre, as the French attacked the Navarrese holdings in Normandy. Castilian victories forced Carlos to concede to the treaty of Briones in March 1379 which compelled him to surrender to the infante of Castile 18 castles along with an elaborate system of hostages for each of the castles and for the cities of Pamplona, Sangüesa, Olite, and Laguardia.54 In addition, the treaty stipulated that Carlos was forbidden from allying with or supporting England in any way, with a specific note that none of Carlos II's children could marry into the English royal house—not even to an illegitimate member of the dynasty.55
Yet the dire straits in which Carlos II found himself quickly began to ease slightly, giving him room to manoeuvre. Only two months after the Treaty of Briones, Enrique II of Castile died on 29 May, and Carlos's long-time rival and former brother-in-law Charles V of France followed soon after in September 1380. This brought two fairly young, untried monarchs to the thrones of France and Castile—and in the following year his own son and heir was allowed to return to Navarre.56 If Carlos could not forge a marriage alliance with his previous allies, the English, directly, his other option was to look for another prince who had similar political leanings for one of his daughters.
Carlos's choice fell on Jean IV of Brittany, who had a similar scenario, being both a vassal of the king of France but also an autonomous ruler in his own right who was keen to keep his duchy outside direct French control. Carlos and Jean leant towards the English in their political sympathies, but both had been forbidden in treaties signed with the French to support the English.57 While the Treaty of Guérande which Jean IV signed with France in 1381 required him to oppose any attempt of Carlos II to claim the French crown or provide support to Navarre against France, it was not clear that marriage between their respective houses was barred. A Breton-Navarrese marriage offered both Carlos and Jean several advantages, by allowing them to develop a deeper bond between two realms which shared a desire to support the English and prevent French control of their territories. The marriage also offered Carlos II a chance to “reactivate” himself politically by building up his allies in Northern France, while Jean IV appreciated that a Navarrese infanta could offer not only a connection to her father, the king of Navarre, but to her first cousin, the king of France, and her Valois uncles of Burgundy and Berry.58 While an alliance with Navarre could appear to be potentially provocative to France, this marriage also offered an opportunity for a rapprochement with the French as Henneman noted: “a wife with Valois blood ... was surely more acceptable in Paris than his two previous English spouses”.59
Jean had been married twice previously—first to Mary, daughter of Edward III of England, who died in 1361 shortly after they wed, and then to Joan Holland, daughter-in-law of the Black Prince, who had died in 1384—but no issue had been produced from either marriage. Jean wasted no time after the death of his second wife in looking for a third. Indeed, Michael Jones has noted that negotiations for a potential Navarrese marriage were so quickly in train that on the same day that the English court was holding a Mass for the death of Joan Holland on 27 November 1384, Joan's father, Carlos II of Navarre, was authorising his envoy to make terms with Jean IV for a matrimonial alliance.60 Jean's need for an heir was particularly pressing not just due to his advancing years but because he had spent the better part of his life and reign fighting another branch of the ducal dynasty, the Penthièvres, over the right to the duchy. Should he die without issue, the Penthièvres would claim the ducal throne and all of his work to secure Brittany for the Montforts would be undone. Thus top of Jean IV's list of requirements for a Navarrese was a requirement that she be “a laage de seze anz ou au desus et saine de toute maladie contagieuse”—i.e that she was young (“sixteen years or younger”), healthy and thus presumably fertile, given that her mother, Jeanne de Valois, had produced three sons and four daughters.61 At this stage, Carlos II had only two legitimate daughters left as both Blanca and Bona had passed away—indeed Bona had died in 1383, only a year before the Breton marital negotiations began. Out of the two surviving infantas, Joan seemed to fit the description of being “sixteen years or younger” best, as she would have been approximately 16 when the negotiations began in 1384, while Maria was roughly four years older.
A key figure who was important to orchestrating the match was the Breton noble the viscount de Rohan, married to Carlos II's youngest sister, Juana, who appears to have been influential in pushing the match forward.62 Jean IV sent messengers with an initial approach to Carlos II in late 1384 which were cordially received, and a team of negotiators was dispatched to Brittany with instructions and the power to draft an agreement and Joan's explicit permission for negotiations to be contracted in her name.63 On 12 April 1385 Jean IV wrote a polite and formal letter to thank Carlos II for sending Guillermo de Plantarosa, the master of the king's household, to Brittany to discuss terms and swore to receive Joan as his bride as long as the conditions established in the negotiations were met.64 Plantarosa led an elite team which included two other royal counsellors, Francisco de Villapesa and Pierre Godeile, who was also the abbot of Monreal—to thank Plantarosa for his efforts, Joan gifted him cloth from Monstivillier.65 In return, Jean IV sent his own team of Geoffroy de Poulglou, his chamberlain, and the lawyer Robert Brochereul, the seneschal of Nantes, to Navarre at the end of May 1386 to finalise the details just before the marriage and ensure that the contract was complied with.66
The Breton marriage was a significant political alliance for Joan's family and one that her father paid dearly for—knowing how vital the marriage was for Carlos II to gain a like-minded and supportive political friend in the French sphere, Jean IV had asked for a considerable dowry. Carlos had instructed his own negotiators not to promise more than 100,000 francs plus 12,000 francs-worth in jewels, but Jean IV ultimately asked for 200,000 gold francs—Joan's dowry was finally agreed at 120,000 gold francs plus another 6,000 francs allocated from the rents of the vicomté d’Avranches.67 It was agreed that the dowry could be paid in instalments but nevertheless, for a kingdom which had been strapped by prolonged wars and economic difficulties, this was a nearly impossible sum to raise.68 The substantial dowry plus the money needed for the lavish festivities as well as garments and jewels for the bride took a massive financial toll on not just the king but the kingdom itself, as Carlos II looked to the buenas villas or the major cities of the realm to assist with the hefty cost.69 Ultimately, after extensive efforts to wring the money out of every crevice of the kingdom, Carlos could only send 46,986 francs by the time of the wedding—33,014 short of the first stipulated dowry instalment.70 The wedding went ahead but the dowry was never paid in full; indeed, Joan's son Jean V ultimately brought a suit at the Tribunal de Paris against his uncle Carlos III for the unpaid sum in 1409.71
Not only did Carlos II have to raise money for the dowry from the realm, but he also had to fund the wedding celebrations, the bridal journey, and, most importantly, provide Joan with a trousseau fit for a princess. It appears that Carlos pressed various nobles and servitors for loans—even from Jehan le Roux, a key member of his son's entourage, to help him cover the costs of the wedding expenses.72 The gold and silversmiths of the realm were given considerable work making a number of items for the infanta's trousseau, including silver tableware and particularly jewellery for the bride, including several crowns to help her transition to her new status as duchess and ensure she made a suitably royal impression in Brittany.73 The bride had to be suitably clothed, as did her entourage, who were also representing Navarre, thus several payments were made just before Joan's departure in July 1386 for cloth “for the people who are accompanying the infanta Joan to Brittany”.74 While considerable sums were being spent on the bride, Joan also gave gifts to those she was leaving behind, including red and grey (presumably patterned) cloth which she gifted to the servitors of her sister Maria, who would have been part of the household of the infantas in which Joan had grown up, and gifted her aunt Agnes cloth of Monstivillier as well.75 Finally, Joan's trousseau of household items such as a considerable quantity of sheets and bedclothes, foodstuffs, wine and spices, and her clothes had to be packed as well—in all there were nine pairs of coffers; four pairs for her clothes, one for her jewels, one for the items for her chapel, and the rest for household items.76
Joan's bridal trip in 1386 entailed an overland journey from Pamplona to Bayonne—as noted above, from the accounts of the infantas’ household, we can ascertain that she departed the capital on 27 July. Joan moved northwards to the monastery of Roncevalles in the Pyrenees, an important stop on the pilgrim trail to Santiago de Compostela which has a long history of association with the rulers of Navarre, where she appears to have remained for a few weeks. Her father Carlos II visited her there on 30 July and again on 7 and 19 August—on the last occasion, Joan's brother Carlos joined them as well.77 The royal party continued northwards to St Jean Pied de Port where there was a brief hiatus when Joan and her brother Carlos waited for a few days for their father who had made a detour to collect a little more cash for the dowry instalment. On 23 August they continued their journey to Irissarry, stopped at La Bastida de Clerenza the following day, and reached their destination of Bayonne on 25 August.78
The pieces were all coming together by the end of August—the dowry (or a portion of it) had been collected, the bride, royal entourage, and her trousseau had made it safely over the Pyrenees, and the papal dispensation for the match had come through.79 After Joan's arrival at Bayonne, there was a formal blessing of the match on 2 September in the Cathédrale Sainte-Marie conducted by Pierre Godeile, the abbot of Monreal, who had also been part of the negotiating team sent by Carlos II to Brittany. A group of emissaries from the Breton court had been sent to collect her and had arrived at San Sebastian in June in a flotilla of three boats captained by Pierre de Lesnerac. While Joan and her party travelled slowly overland, the flotilla had sailed from San Sebastian to Bayonne on the 10–12 July and had been waiting with decreasing patience for six weeks at the mouth of the Adour until the bride was ready to depart.80 Finally, on 4 September, two days after the blessing at Bayonne, the flotilla departed with the bride, her household and goods in tow, and made a swift journey up the coast to Croisic—her wedding to Jean IV was celebrated nearby at Saillé near Guérande on 11 September and Joan's transition from infanta to duchess was complete.
In this chapter, we have not only been introduced to Joan, but we have placed her in the wider context of her wide-ranging and impressive family networks and the turbulent politics of her father's reign, which shaped her childhood and ultimately set her on the path to become duchess of Brittany. While we cannot say with certainty whether her childhood was a happy one, we have seen how her aunt Agnes played a key role in filling the gap left by Jeanne de Valois’ death when Joan was only a toddler. Even though Joan's mother died in her early years, we can see the model of effective queenship that she and Joan's aunts, the French dowager queens Blanche of Navarre and Jeanne d’Evreux, created and the impact that this, along with the influence of her aunts Agnes and Juana, would have had in shaping Joan into the duchess and queen she would eventually become. Finally, this chapter has traced some of the key moments of the Hundred Years War in relation to Carlos II's controversial and troubled reign. This unfolding conflict, and political tension with her Valois cousins in France, continued to dominate Joan's life from her earliest days as infanta into her later roles as duchess of Brittany and queen of England, as we will see in the chapters to follow.