Early years and education Anne was born on 25 or 26 January 1477 in the
Castle of the Dukes of Brittany in the city of
Nantes in what is now the
Loire-Atlantique département of France, as the eldest child of Duke
Francis II of Brittany and his second wife
Margaret of Foix, Infanta of Navarre. Four years later (before 10 May 1481), her parents had a second daughter, Isabelle. Her mother died when Anne was nine, while her father died when Anne was eleven years old. It is likely that she learned to read and write in French, and perhaps a little Latin. Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, it was unlikely that she learned Greek or
Hebrew and never spoke or understood the
Breton language. She was raised by a governess,
Françoise de Dinan, Lady of Chateaubriant and by marriage Countess of Laval. In addition, she had several tutors, including her butler and court poet,
Jean Meschinot, who is thought to have taught her dancing, singing and music.
Heiress of Brittany In this period, the law of succession was unclear, but prior to the
Breton War of Succession mainly operated according to
semi-Salic Law; i.e.,
noble women could inherit, but only if the male line had died out. The
Treaty of Guérande in 1365, however, stated that in the absence of a male heir from the
House of Montfort, the heirs of
Joanna of Penthièvre would succeed. By the time Anne was born, her father was the only man of from the Breton
House of Montfort-Brittany, and the Blois-Penthièvre heir was a woman,
Nicole of Blois, who in 1480 sold her rights over Brittany to King Louis XI of France for the amount of 50,000 écus. The lack of a male heir gave rise to the threat of a dynastic crisis in the Duchy, or to its passing directly into the royal domain. To avoid this, Francis II had Anne officially recognised as his heiress by the
Estates of Brittany on 10 February 1486; however, the question of her marriage remained a diplomatic issue.
Betrothals Being the first eldest surviving child and heiress of the Duchy of Brittany, Anne was, above all, the instrument of her father's political manoeuvring. Francis II indeed promised his daughter to various French or foreign princes in order to obtain military and financial aid, and to strengthen his position against the King of France. The prospect for these princes to add the duchy to their domain thus allowed the Duke of Brittany to initiate several marriage negotiations and to forge various secret alliances which accompanied these matrimonial projects. Anne became the stake of these rival ambitions, and her father, reassured by the signing of these alliances, could afford to refuse various marriage projects and contracts. These political calculations thus led to Anne's engagement with different European princes: • In 1480 she was officially promised in marriage to
Edward, Prince of Wales, son of
Edward IV of England; however, soon after the death of Edward IV in 1483, the boy disappeared, presumed to have been killed – possibly on the orders of his regent,
Richard III. • Henry Tudor, the future King
Henry VII of England, last male representative of the Lancaster branch, then in exile in Brittany showed interest in being a suitor for Anne's hand, but this marriage did not interest her father. •
Maximilian, King of the Romans and Archduke of Austria, widower of
Mary of Burgundy, daughter and heiress of
Charles the Bold. •
Alain I of Albret, son of Catherine of Rohan and
Jean I of Albret. Through his mother, he was a great-grandson of
Duke John V of Brittany, and thus a possible heir. Although he was an ally of Duke Francis II, Anne refused to marry him because she found him repulsive. Before the papal court, convened by
Marshal Rieux, a proponent of Albret's suit, to give the couple a dispensation to marry, Anne declared that she had only entertained his offer of marriage due to "l'obéissance, crainte & révérence" [the obedience, fear, and reverence] due to her father, and that she herself did not want it. •
Louis, Duke of Orléans, cousin of King Charles VIII and in turn future King, was another aspirant for her hand, despite being already married to the King's sister
Joan. •
John IV of Chalon-Arlay, Prince of Orange. A grandson of
Richard, Count of Étampes, and nephew of Francis II, he was in line to the throne after Anne and Isabelle. •
Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham. In 1488 Henry VII had suggested a marriage between Buckingham and Anne, but in December 1489 the executors of
Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland, paid the King £4000 for Buckingham's marriage to Percy's eldest daughter
Eleanor. • Viscount John II of
Rohan, also in line to the Breton Ducal throne, offered with the support of Marshal
Jean IV de Rieux a double marriage of his sons François and Jean with Anne and her sister Isabelle, but Francis II opposed this plan.
Marriages In 1488, Francis II was defeated at the
Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier, ending the
Mad War (
la Guerre Folle) between Brittany and France. In the
Treaty of Sablé (19 August 1488), which concluded the peace settlement, the Duke was forced to accept clauses stipulating that his daughters were not to marry without the approval of the King of France. With the death of Francis II soon afterwards (9 September 1488) as a result of a fall from his horse, Brittany was plunged into a fresh crisis, leading to the final Franco-Breton war. On his deathbed, the Duke made his daughter promise never to consent to the subjugation of the Duchy to the Kingdom of France. Before he died, Francis II appointed the Marshal of Rieux guardian of his daughter. , AE/II/525. After fleeing Nantes following the division of her advisors over the issue of her marriage, Anne was crowned Duchess of Brittany in Rennes on 10 February 1489. Although both Castile and England sent small numbers of troops to supplement the Ducal army, neither wished for open warfare with France. The spring of 1491 brought new successes by the French general
La Trémoille (the previous victor of the Battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier), and King
Charles VIII of France came to lay siege to Rennes, where Anne stayed, to force her to desist from her Habsburg marriage. Aided by troops from England, the
Holy Roman Empire, and the crowns of
Aragon and
Castile, Rennes lasted through two months of Charles's siege before falling. During this time, Anne's sister Isabelle died. from the marriage of Duchess Anne of Brittany and King
Charles VIII of France in the "
marriage hall" of the
Château de Langeais. Charles VIII entered the city on 15 November, and both parties signed the Treaty of Rennes, ending the fourth military campaign of the French over Brittany. After refusing all proposed marriages with French princes, Anne became engaged to the King on 17 November 1491, in the vault of the Jacobins in Rennes. Then, escorted by her army (ostensibly to show that she had willingly consented to the marriage), Anne went to
Langeais to be married. Austria made diplomatic protests (especially before the Holy See), claiming that the marriage was illegal because the bride was unwilling, that she was already legally married to Maximilian, and that Charles VIII was legally betrothed to
Margaret of Austria, Maximilian's daughter. The official marriage between Anne and King Charles VIII of France was celebrated in the Great Hall of the
Château de Langeais on 6 December 1491 at dawn. The ceremony was concluded discreetly and urgently because it was technically illegal until
Pope Innocent VIII, in exchange for substantial concessions, validated the union on 15 February 1492, by granting the annulment of the marriage by proxy with Maximilian, and also giving a dispensation for the marriage with Charles VIII, needed because the King and Anne were related in the forbidden fourth degree of consanguinity. The marriage contract provided that the spouse who outlived the other would retain possession of Brittany; however, it also stipulated that if Charles VIII died without male heirs, Anne would marry his successor, thus ensuring the French kings a second chance to annex Brittany permanently.
Queen of Charles VIII (–1508). By the marriage of 1491, Anne of Brittany became Queen consort of France. Her marriage contract stated that it was concluded to
ensure peace between the Duchy of Brittany and the Kingdom of France. She made Charles VIII her perpetual representative. On 8 February 1492, Anne was
crowned Queen of France at
St. Denis Basilica. She was the first Queen crowned there and consecrated, "
anointed in the head and chest" by
André d'Espinay,
Archbishop of Bordeaux. Her husband forbade her to use the title of Duchess of Brittany, which became a bone of contention between the two. Gabriel Miron became the Chancellor of the Queen and her first doctor; he signed the marriage contract of the Queen with King Louis XII on 1 January 1499. Anne's marriage began badly: she brought two beds with her when she came to marry Charles, and the King and Queen often lived apart; despite this, she was pregnant for most of her married life (with a child every fourteen months on average). When her husband fought in the wars in Italy, the regency powers were exercised by his sister
Anne of Beaujeu, who had held this position between 1483 and 1491. Anne of Brittany had a limited role in France and Brittany and sometimes had to accept being separated from her children in infancy. She lived primarily in the royal castles of Amboise, Loches and Plessis or in the towns of
Lyon,
Grenoble or
Moulins (when the king was in Italy). At Amboise, when Charles VIII had work, she mainly resided in the nearby
Clos Lucé, the future home of
Leonardo da Vinci. She built her chapel. She became Queen Consort of Naples and Jerusalem during the conquest of Naples by Louis XII in 1501.
Duchess of Brittany and remarriage When Charles VIII died as the result of an accident on 4 April 1498, Anne was 21 years old and without surviving children. She then personally took charge of the administration of the Duchy of Brittany. She restored the faithful Philippe de Montauban to the
chancellery of Brittany, named Jean de Châlon, Prince of Orange, as Hereditary Lieutenant General of Brittany, appointed her squire Gilles of Texue as responsible of the
Château de Brest, convened the Estates of Brittany, and ordered production of a gold coin bearing her name. Around her, there was a famous circle of court poets, among them the Italian humanist
Publio Fausto Andrelini from
Forlì (who spread the
New Learning in France), historian
Jean Lemaire de Belges and poet
Jean Marot. She also took into her service the most famous musicians of her time:
Johannes Ockeghem,
Antoine de Févin,
Loyset Compère and
Jean Mouton. Anne of Brittany was undoubtedly the first Queen of France to appear as a
patron sought after by artists and writers of her time. Three days after her husband's death, the terms of her marriage contract came into force; however, the new King, Louis XII, was already married to
Joan, daughter of
Louis XI and sister to Charles VIII. On 19 August 1498, at Étampes, Anne agreed to marry Louis XII if he obtained an annulment from Joan within a year. Days later, the process for the annulment of the marriage between Louis XII and Joan of France began. In the interim, Anne returned to Brittany in October 1498.
Queen of Louis XII If Anne was gambling that the annulment would be denied, she lost: Louis's first marriage was dissolved by
Pope Alexander VI before the end of the year. Anne's third marriage contract, signed the day of her marriage (Nantes, 7 January 1499), was concluded under conditions radically different from those of the second. She was no longer a child, but a Dowager Queen, and determined to ensure the recognition of her rights as sovereign Duchess from that point forward. Although her new husband exercised the ruler's powers in Brittany, he formally recognized her right to the title "Duchess of Brittany" and issued decisions in her name. The contract also stipulated that, since Anne personally retained rights to the duchy, the couple's second child, son or daughter, would be Anne's own heir, thus keeping the duchy separate from the throne of France. This clause would not be respected. Anne's second coronation ceremony as Louis XII's consort took place on 18 November 1504, again at St. Denis Basilica. Anne lived mainly at the
Château de Blois, where the presence of the Duchess of Brittany was visible everywhere. She built the
tomb of her parents at
Nantes Cathedral (where her heart would also return under the terms of her last will) with the symbols of the four virtues: Courage, Temperance, Justice and Prudence, that she always tried to wear. All Italian arts were appreciated by the Queen. During an illness of Louis XII she made a tour of Brittany (not the
Tro Breizh, contrary to what is often said Every time Louis' precarious health threatened his death, steps were taken to cement this match between Claude and Francis. Anne, determined to maintain Breton independence, refused to sanction the marriage until her death, pushing instead for Claude to marry Charles, or for her other daughter, Renée, to inherit the Duchy. When Louis XII definitively settled their daughters' dispositions counter to her wishes, Anne left his side to tour the Duchy, visiting many places she had never been able to see as a child. Officially, it was a pilgrimage to the Breton shrines in thanks for one of Louis' recent recoveries, but in reality it was a political journey: an act of independence that sought to assert her sovereignty within the marriage. Letters imply how much Louis took her absence to heart: according to a July letter from Louise of Savoy to Michelle de Saubonne, Louis "could not be more anxious" for Anne's return and "is as wretched as can be without her." By September, he is reported as asking about her return at least six times a day. From June to September 1505, she made triumphal entries into the cities of the Duchy, where her vassals received her sumptuously. In addition, she ensured the proper collection of taxes. ==Death==