(1477-1514). Duchess of Brittany and queen of France. The oldest daughter of Frangois II, duke of Brittany, and Marguerite de Foix, Anne of Brittany was born at Nantes on
January 26, 1477. At the death of her father in September 1488, she became duchess of Brittany, the heiress of a strategic territory and much sought after as a bride. The autonomy of her duchy was severely threatened, and she finally married Charles VIII of France in December 1491, seven weeks before her fifteenth birthday. Between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two, the young queen experienced repeated pregnancies, but no child lived more than a few years and none survived Charles VIII, who died in 1498. Charles was succeeded by Louis XII, his father’s second cousin and an old acquaintance of Anne’s, although fifteen years her senior. She married Louis in January 1499 and bore him four children, of whom two daughters survived. The older one, Claude, was married to Francis, duke of Angouleme, who succeeded Louis as king in 1515. Their son, Henry II, inherited Brittany from Claude and finally brought the duchy under the direct rule of the French crown. Anne of Brittany, beloved as the last ruler of independent Brittany, died at Blois in January 1514, so did not live to see her daughter reign as queen of France.
John Bell Henneman, Jr.
[See also: BRITTANY (genealogical table); CHARLES Vni; FRANgOIS II]
Gabory, Emile. Anne de Bretagne: duchesse etreine. Paris: Plon, 1941.
Labande-Mailfert, Yvonne. Charles VIII et son milieu (1470-1498). Paris: Klincksieck, 1975.
Le Boterf, Herve. Anne de Bretagne. Paris: France-Empire, 1976.
Le Roux de Lincy, Antoine. Vie de la reine Anne de Bretagne. 4 vols. Paris: Curmer, 1860-61.
World History
