Joanna, or Jane of Navarre, the consort of Henry IV, is one of those queens of England whose records, as connected with the history of this country, are of a very obscure and mysterious character; yet the events of her life, when traced through foreign chronicles and unpublished sources of information, are replete with interest, forming an unprecedented chapter in the history of female royalty.1
Queens have long been a source of fascination to writers of all types, chroniclers, historians, biographers, novelists, and journalists, from the ancient world to the modern day. The reigns (and love lives) of queens such as Elizabeth I, Cleopatra, and Catherine the Great have been perhaps over-examined, as have the lives of many queens whose reigns came to tragic and untimely ends such as Marie Antoinette, Mary Queen of Scots, Lady Jane Grey, and Anne Boleyn. Queens who lived in politically turbulent times, such as the women of the Wars of the Roses, and controversial consorts and regents such as Catherine de Medici, Hurrem Sultan, or Nur Jahan have also received considerable interest from scholars and popular culture. Yet other queens’ lives pass “under the radar”, failing to grasp either academic or popular attention. Joan of Navarre is one of these queens who is not well known, even among specialists in queenship and medieval history—yet as Agnes Strickland noted in the quote above, her long life is “replete with interest”. Joan lived in Iberia, France, and England; she was daughter of an intensely controversial father, a duchess in a divided Breton court, and later the wife of a usurper king who fought off attacks by rebels and Parliament to preserve his position. She was living at the epicentre of the Hundred Years War, with ties on all sides and divided loyalties at the famous battle of Agincourt, and was accused of witchcraft by her stepson—Joan hardly had a quiet or boring life, so why has there been little written about her?
This next section will aim to resolve this quandary by examining the treatment of Joan by various types of scholars and writers including English and Breton historians as well as queenly biographers or prosopographers. Various key themes resonate most strongly in the historiography of Joan: her marriages, motherhood, agency, and of course perhaps her most distinguishing feature, the accusation of treason or witchcraft. Intriguingly, Joan's agency and political activity throughout her long career is the area which has without doubt received the least attention. Joan is often portrayed as an onlooker to events with little connection to or influence on the chaos that often surrounded her. However, that impression stems from the chronicles, which rarely feature princesses, duchesses, queens, or dowagers apart from commenting on scandalous events or key moments in their life cycle, such as births, marriages, and deaths. This impression has been passed along by later writers and historians. This has also had an impact on Joan's minimal impression in popular culture—the seeming lack of material to work on has meant that she rarely appears in plays, films, and novels, unlike some of the more famous (or infamous) aforementioned queens. Shakespeare omitted her completely from his so-called “Hollow Crown” or history plays, even though she played a prominent role in the reigns of Henry IV and V, and aside from a recent novel by Anne O’Brien, there have been few attempts to tell Joan's story. After briefly charting how she has been portrayed in other works, we will then turn to the particular approach that this book—the first full-length study on Joan of Navarre—takes to document and discuss her life.
Unsurprisingly perhaps, Joan barely registers on the radar of Navarrese historians, as she left the realm in her late teens to marry, and there is little documentary evidence of her childhood; as a younger daughter of the king of Navarre, this is entirely logical. Where she does register is in terms of her marriages, particularly her first marriage to the duke of Brittany in 1386, which was significant as the last major alliance crafted by her father, Carlos II, before his death the following year. While the primary sources demonstrate that Joan continued to maintain close ties with her homeland and family after she left the Pyrenean realm, she is rarely mentioned in national histories and narratives of the reign of Joan's brother Carlos III, although the relationship between Navarre and Brittany is occasionally touched on. Effectively, in the eyes of Navarrese historians, Joan appears to be merely a pawn who made two marriages which enhanced their diplomatic connections. Joan's ongoing relationship with her family, including both her brother Pedro, who visited her frequently in Brittany, and her cousin Carlos de Beaumont, who joined her household in England and played a significant role at the English court, has not yet been deeply discussed.
It is perhaps Breton historians who have paid the most attention to Joan because she played a key role in the history of the Montfort dynasty, providing much needed heirs for her husband, Jean IV, after two childless marriages left him in danger of passing the duchy back to his bitter rivals, the Penthièvres. While there are no works specifically focused on her, Joan makes a frequent appearance in Breton historiography, from chronicles to general histories of the duchy, in biographies of her husband, Jean IV, and sons Jean V and Arthur de Richemont, and in several pieces focused specifically on duchesses.2 After the death of Jean IV, Joan became regent for her young son Jean V—the analyses of her efforts to secure a smooth succession for her son through the effective use of ceremonial and her brief period of governance of the duchy is where Joan's agency shines most clearly in Breton historiography.3
There is a mood change in the treatment of Joan after 1400 as her controversial second marriage to Henry IV, which led to her giving up both the regency of the duchy and the custody of the majority of her children, provoked a great deal of comment in Breton historiography, which can be rather critical of her decision to remarry.4 English historians, however, have taken a mixed view of the motivations behind Joan's decision to leave Brittany. Historians such as J.L. Kirby, Anne Crawford, and Ian Mortimer have often been sympathetic to Joan and towards her decision to leave Brittany for England, emphasising the notion of her sacrifice in order to marry Henry.5 Yet, while Joan lived in England longer than anywhere else in her long life, for 34 years from 1403 until her death in 1437, generally English historiography has taken little notice of her. This is in part because the chronicles of the period have little time for her—Joan's arrival in England with a lavish wedding at Winchester and coronation at Westminster are certainly commented on by contemporary sources like the chronicles of Thomas Walsingham and Adam Usk, but then there are few mentions of her until she is accused of treason or possibly witchcraft.6 Even then, considering how unusual and scandalous that accusation was, it is not given as much attention as one might expect—perhaps the chroniclers too recognised that the charge had little basis in reality, as we will discuss in Chapter 4.
More surprising, perhaps, is that Joan is barely mentioned in biographies of her husband Henry IV or analyses of his reign, although it is generally acknowledged that Joan and Henry had a strong relationship.7 Brief mentions of her excessive dower and large foreign retinue give the impression that Joan was a lavish spender and nothing more than a drain on the Crown's purse, a reputation that we will explore more deeply in Chapter 5. Joan is often dismissed as an uninteresting queen or an expensive mistake on the part of Henry IV, who granted her a generous dower that he struggled to fund. Paul Strohm, in his chapter-long examination of her, describes her as “That Obscure Object of Desire” and even as a “problem”.8 As Joan was not a mother of a king she has been deemed to be of little significance and thus her political influence or agency has generally been glossed over by contemporary chroniclers and modern historians—yet as Strickland noted, there are considerable primary sources available which form the foundation of this current work, revealing a very different picture of her activity as both queen consort and dowager. Interestingly as well, Joan often appears to be a more engaged and significant player in French chronicles like the chronicle of Saint Denis and the Burgundian Livre des Trahisons than those which documented English events or even those of her native Navarre where she barely features, if at all.
Joan has also received little attention from queenly collective biographers; she generally only appears in collective biographies of queens which aim to include all of the English queen consorts of the Middle Ages, such as the collections by the Victorian biographers Hannah Lawrance, Francis Lancelott, Mary Howitt, and the famous compendium by the Strickland sisters, or more modern collections such as Lisa Hilton's compendium Queens Consort.9 While all of the queenly biographers are theoretically focused on her role as queen of England, there is some coverage of her early years of Navarre and her tenure as duchess of Brittany, noting Joan's increasing influence and political agency over the course of her years in the duchy and her regency for her son Jean V. There are three key themes that are emphasised in the collective biographies: her role as a mother and her decision to leave her children behind in Brittany when she remarried, the accusation of treason or possibly witchcraft and detention under Henry V, and the repeated allegation that she was “avaricious”.10 The emphasis on the latter two elements has “coloured later characterizations” of Joan's life, even defining her to some extent as a “royal witch”, as in the subtitle of Lisa Hilton's chapter on Joan in Queens Consort or Gemma Hollman's wider survey of royal women accused of witchcraft.11 Indeed, another collective biographer, Petronelle Cook, notes that Joan's unique features were two “firsts” for English queens, being the first widow to marry a king of England (after the Norman Conquest) and the first to be accused of witchcraft.12 However, Joan's later years, after she was released from detention on the spurious charge, are glossed over by the collective biographers; Cook summarises this entire period in one sentence by claiming that Joan “retreated into the obscurity she craved” to observe the great events and the lives of her sons from afar—yet as this book will demonstrate, Joan remained an engaged and active agent in administration and politics until her death.13
This brief historiography of Joan of Navarre not only gives an impression of her treatment in previous works but reveals wider issues with biographies and treatments of medieval queens in general. We return to this question of why Joan's life has received little attention despite being replete with scandal and interesting elements, including her controversial second marriage, the very unusual accusation of treason or witchcraft, and her political engagement in the Hundred Years War. Maternity is arguably a key factor here—in Brittany where she was the mother of multiple dukes and thus a critical dynastic linchpin, she has made an enduring impression in Breton historiography. However, in England, where she was the foreign wife of an unbeloved king and only a stepmother and step-grandmother in the reigns that followed, she appears extraneous to the master narrative of the period. Her brief treatment in the chronicles and national histories of England convinced later queenly biographers that there was little need to focus on her particularly unless they aimed to make a comprehensive survey of the queens of the period. Yet, those who did dig into her story, like Strickland, Howitt, Lawrance, and Lancelott, found much rewarding material for their collective biographies and acknowledged that Joan had been a woman of great significance in her own time. Indeed, as Hannah Lawrance commented, “scarcely even the name of the queen who gives the title to this chapter, is known to the majority of readers ... And yet this almost forgotten queen ... possessing commanding talents, was destined to act an important part, both in Bretagne and England”.14
This book aims to address the lack of a focused, comprehensive, full-length survey of Joan's long life, giving equal weight to the four key periods of Joan's life: her childhood as a Navarrese infanta or princess, her first marriage and time as duchess of Brittany, her second marriage to Henry IV which made her queen consort of England, and her second long widowhood as a dowager queen. These periods will each form the basis of an individual chapter in the first section of the book and will trace her life in a chronological fashion. There will be a pronounced emphasis on the importance of family or personal relationships and politics—as a royal woman, these two elements were completely intertwined in Joan's life and formed its very foundation. Joan lived during particularly turbulent times—indeed the entirety of her life took place within the confines of the Hundred Years War and, as we will see, this conflict played a major role in her life as she was related to nearly all of the central figures in this conflict on both sides of the Channel. The context of this conflict and the political dynamics of the reigns of Joan's father, Carlos II, and brother, Carlos III of Navarre, and her two husbands, Jean IV of Brittany and Henry IV of England, will be woven into the chapters. However, a balance will be struck—it is not the intention to reprise the political history of the period as there are already excellent works which cover this in intensive detail, including Michael Jones's extensive scholarship on late medieval Brittany, Chris Given-Wilson's authoritative biography of Henry IV, Eloísa Ramírez Vaquero's work on Carlos III and the kingdom of Navarre, and Jonathan Sumption's multi-volume analysis of the Hundred Years War.15 Yet what these works lack is Joan's connection with and position within the shifting politics of the period, which is what this book will try to supply—keeping her at the forefront of the narrative, rather than reducing her to a background character or a footnote as she has all too often been in previous works.
The second section of the book will take a radically different, thematic perspective on her life, examining her finances, her networks and affinity, and her patronage and possessions. The first of these chapters will take on the suggestion that Joan was “avaricious” by thoroughly examining her economic activity, particularly her administration of her Breton and English dower lands. Recent trends in queenship studies have begun to place greater focus on the financial activity of royal women, recognising their role as the controller of considerable monetary and landed resources and the key element this played in their exercise of both the queen's office and their own personal power and influence. This book is the first biography of Joan which moves beyond suggestions of greed and avarice to reveal that these epithets are actually reflections of her deep engagement with the management of her lands and revenues—from day-to-day administration with her vast network of officials from her office at Westminster Palace to the near constant battles she fought to retain and later regain her impressive collection of land holdings in both Brittany and England that she accrued as duchess and queen. The following chapter will trace Joan's networks of service, from the officials who assisted her in the administration of her dower lands to her household, noting the long-term loyalty of those who continued to serve her even as she transitioned between realms and was detained under suspicion of witchcraft. Finally, the last chapter brings together several elements: examining the places she inhabited, her personal and political piety, the possessions she surrounded herself with, and her acts of patronage which built on familial traditions and connections.
In summary, the first section will chart the key events of Joan's long life, from a young infanta, to becoming a wife and mother, a duchess and queen, and, finally, a matriarch of sorts—even if a controversial one—to an extended brood of children and stepchildren. The second section will move from understanding the events of her life to a deeper examination of her agency and activity, the people who surrounded her, and the places and objects that she possessed. Taken together, the intention is to build the richest possible picture of Joan's life and gain a deeper understanding of Joan as a woman in addition to being an infanta, duchess, and queen.