Isabelle de Beauvau

Isabelle de Beauvau or Isabeau de Beauvau (around 1436–1475) was a French noblewoman, of the Beauvau family, lady of Champigny and de la Roche-sur-Yon, countess of Vendôme by her marriage. She is the trisaïeule of King Henry IV of France (it is for this reason that the Beauvau family obtained the title of cousin of the King, reserved for the rare families having an alliance with the House of France, by Louis XIV, then officially by Louis XV in 1739) and Catherine de' Medici, her great-granddaughter.

Isabelle de Beauvau on stained glass

Early life

Isabelle was the only child of Count Louis de Beauvau (1409-1492)[1] and his first wife, Marguerite de Chambley, a woman of noble birth from Lorraine.

Isabelle's mother shown praying besides Saint Mary Magdalena

Isabelle's lineage made her valuable to René of Anjou, who was dealing with a succession crisis over the duchy of Lorraine. He was trying to strengthen ties with Lorraine's nobility which is why her name appears with those of her mother and Yolande, Duchess of Lorraine, in a handwritten collection of poems by Alain Chartier offered to Marie de Clèves.[2] Other than that not much is known about Isabelle's childhood; her marriage negotiations started before she was eighteen and she was raised a catholic. She had one half-sister, Alix de Beauvau, who was legitimized when her father remarried.

Marriage and becoming Countess

Isabelle married John VIII, Count of Vendôme, on 9 November 1454 at Angers,[1] thus becoming the Countess of Vendôme. As a courtier of King Charles VII of France, her husband he fought the English in Normandy and Guyenne leaving her to supervise the council and oversee the royal affairs she went into confinement many times and met many women during those times and was therefore favored by the women of lavardin she and her husband had a good relationship and had eight children:

  • Jeanne (1460-1487); in 1478 she married Louis de Joyeuse (around 1450-1498);
  • Catherine (1461-after 1525), married in 1484 to Gilbert de Chabannes, seneschal of Limousin;
  • Jeanne de Bourbon (1465-1511), known as Jeanne la Jeune; she married 1) in 1487 Jean II of Bourbon, 2) in 1495 Jean IΙΙ, Count of Auvergne (through this marriage, she became the grandmother of Catherine de Médicis); 3) in 1503 François de La Pause, baron of La Garde;
  • Renée (1468-1534), abbess of the Trinity of Caen from 1491 to 1505, then from Fontevrault from 1505 to her death;
  • François de Bourbon-Vendôme (1470-1495);[3] Great-grandfather of Henry IV of France.
  • Louis, Prince of La Roche-sur-Yon (1473-1520);
  • Charlotte (1474-1520), married to Engilbert de Clèves, count of Nevers (1462-1506);
  • Isabelle (1475-1531), abbess of the Trinity of Caen from 1505 to 1531

Death and legacy
Isabelle's family's coat of arms

Isabelle died giving birth to her last daughter. She is buried in the Saint-George collegiate church in Vendôme, the Bourbon Vendôme necropolis, which has since disappeared. Through her third daughter she was great grandmother to the French nobility. She is most remembered for the poem by Alain Chartier to Marie of Cleves.

References
  1. Nicolas Louis Achaintre (1825). Histoire Généalogique Et Chronologique de la Maison Royale de Bourbon. Mansut. pp. 361–.
  2. Joan E. McRae (2 August 2004). Alain Chartier: The Quarrel of the Belle Dame Sans Mercy. Routledge. p. 12. ISBN 978-1-135-88853-4.
  3. Louis Nyel; Mabre-Cramoisy (1683). La Vie du R. P. Anne-François de Beauvau, de la Compagnie de Jésus [par le P. Louis Nyel]. S. Cramoisy. pp. 1–3.
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