The power struggle between Catholics and Huguenots for control of the French court and France as a whole led to the outbreak of the
French Wars of Religion in 1562. Jeanne and Antoine were at court when the latter made the decision to support the Catholic faction, which was headed by the
House of Guise, and in consequence, threatened to repudiate Jeanne when she refused to attend Mass. Catherine de' Medici, in an attempt to steer a middle course between the two warring factions, also pleaded with Jeanne to obey her husband for the sake of peace but to no avail. Jeanne stood her ground and staunchly refused to abandon the Calvinist religion; she continued to have Protestant services conducted in her apartments. When many of the other nobles also joined the Catholic camp, Catherine had no choice but to support the Catholic faction. Fearing the anger of both her husband and Catherine, Jeanne left Paris in March 1562 and made her way south to seek refuge in Béarn. When Jeanne had stopped for a brief sojourn at her husband's ancestral chateau in
Vendôme on 14 May to break her lengthy homeward journey, she failed to prevent a 400-strong Huguenot force from invading the town. The troop marauded through the streets of Vendôme, robbed and sacked all the churches, abused the inhabitants, and pillaged the ducal chapel, which housed the tombs of Antoine's ancestors. In consequence, her husband adopted a belligerent stance with her. He issued orders to
Blaise de Lasseran-Massencôme, Seigneur de Montluc, to have her arrested and returned to Paris, where she would subsequently be sent to a Catholic convent. She resumed her journey after leaving Vendôme and managed to elude her captors, safely passing over the frontier into Béarn before she could be intercepted by the Seigneur de Montluc and his troops. At the end of the year, Antoine was fatally wounded at the siege of
Rouen and died before Jeanne could obtain the necessary permission to cross over enemy lines in order to be at his bedside, where she had wished to nurse him. His mistress instead was summoned to his deathbed. Jeanne henceforth ruled Navarre as the sole queen regnant, her sex being no impediment to her sovereignty. Her son Henry subsequently became "first prince of the blood". Jeanne often brought him along on her many progresses through her domains to oversee administrative affairs. Jeanne refused an offer of matrimony issued by
Philip II of Spain, who had hoped to marry her to his son on the condition that she return to the Catholic faith. Jeanne's position in the conflicts remained relatively neutral in the beginning, being mainly preoccupied with military defences, given Navarre's geographic location beside Catholic Spain. Papal envoys arrived to coax or coerce her into returning to Catholicism and abolishing
heresy within her kingdom. Her response was to reply that "the authority of the Pope's legate is not recognised in Béarn". At one stage, there was a plot led by
Philip II to have her kidnapped and turned over to the
Spanish Inquisition, where she would be imprisoned in Madrid and the rulers of France and Spain invited to annex Navarre to their crowns. Jeanne was summoned to Rome by
Pius IV to be examined for heresy under the triple penalty of excommunication, the confiscation of her property, and a declaration that her kingdom was available to any ruler who wished to invade it. This last threat alarmed King Philip, and the blatant interference by the
Papacy in French affairs also enraged Catherine de' Medici, who, on behalf of Charles IX, sent angry letters of protest to the Pope. The threats never materialised. During the French court's royal progress between January 1564 and May 1565, Jeanne met and held talks with Catherine de' Medici at
Mâcon and
Nérac.
Third war , Jeanne's only surviving son, whom she presented as one of the legitimate leaders of the Huguenot cause When the third religious war broke out in 1568, however, she decided to actively support the Huguenot cause. Feeling that their lives were in danger from approaching French Catholic and Spanish troops, Jeanne and Henry sought refuge in the Protestant stronghold of
La Rochelle. As Minister of Propaganda, Jeanne wrote manifestos and composed letters to sympathetic foreign rulers, requesting their assistance. She had visualised the province of
Guyenne as a "Protestant homeland" and played a leading role in the military actions from 1569 to 1570 with the aim of seeing her dream come to fruition. Whilst at La Rochelle, she assumed control of fortifications, finances, intelligence gathering, and the maintenance of discipline among the civilian populace. She used her own jewellery as security in a loan obtained from
Elizabeth I of England and oversaw the well-being of the numerous refugees who sought shelter within La Rochelle. She often accompanied
Admiral de Coligny to the battlefield where the fighting was at its most intense; together, they inspected the defences and rallied the Huguenot forces. She established a religious seminary in La Rochelle, drawing the most learned Huguenot men in France within its walls. Following the Huguenot defeat on 16 March 1569 at the
Battle of Jarnac, Jeanne's brother-in-law,
Louis, was captured and subsequently executed. Gaspard de Coligny assumed command of the Huguenot forces nominally on behalf of her son Henry and Condé's son,
Henri I de Bourbon, Prince de Condé. Jeanne established a loan of 20,000
livres from England, using her jewels as security, for the Huguenot cause.
Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye . Following the
Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Jeanne and Catherine arranged a marriage of convenience between their children. Jeanne was the principal mover in negotiating the
Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye which ended this "third war" in August 1570 after the Catholic army ran out of money. That same year, as part of the conditions set out in the peace treaty, a
marriage of convenience Jeanne reluctantly agreed to was arranged between her son and King Charles IX's sister,
Marguerite. This was in exchange for the right of Huguenots to hold public office in France, a privilege which they had previously been denied. Jeanne, despite her mistrust of Catherine de' Medici, accepted the latter's invitation for a personal meeting to negotiate the marriage settlement. Taking her daughter Catherine along, Jeanne went to
Chenonceaux on 14 February 1572, where the two powerful women from opposing factions met. Jeanne found the atmosphere at Chenonceaux corrupt and vicious and wrote letters to her son advising him about the promiscuity of the young women at Catherine's court, whose forward and wanton behaviour with the courtiers scandalised Jeanne's puritanical nature. In one of her letters to Henry, she issued the following warning: "Not for anything on earth would I have you come to live here. Although I knew it was bad, I find it even worse than I feared. Here it is the women who make advances to the men, rather than the other way around. If you were here you would never escape without special intervention from God". Jeanne also complained to her son the Queen Mother mistreated and mocked her as they negotiated terms of the settlement, writing on 8 March, "she treats me so shamefully that you might say that the patience I manage to maintain surpasses that of
Griselda herself". ==Death==