Princess of Bourbon and duchess of Bar-Lorraine, Calvinist who died in exile
Catherine de Bourbon was born in Paris, daughter of Jeanne d’Albret and Antoine de Bourbon and granddaughter of Marguerite de Navarre. Sister to Henry IV, she served as regent on four occasions during the period of her brother’s reign in Navarre: first fTom 1577 to 1578, again in 1582, a third time from 1583 to 1587, and finally in 1588. Descended from a long line of strong-willed and influential women, Bourbon was well equipped to withstand the numerous adversities that plagued her life: the early loss of her parents, the forced abandonment of her beloved, Charles de Bourbon (the Count of Soissons), and her unhappy marriage in 1599 to Henri de Lorraine (the duke of Bar), which was eventually annulled by Clement VIII in 1603, just months before her death, at a time when she mistakenly believed she had at last achieved a much-longed-for pregnancy. A staunch Calvinist in a Catholic kingdom, Catherine de Bourbon was unwilling to renounce her Protestant faith and was ultimately exiled from her brother’s court. Despite constant political and sentimental dramas, Catherine de Bourbon refused to submit to the demands of those around her and managed to cultivate a life of lucid piety and intellectual freedom, qualities made evident in what remains of her correspondance (224 letters written between 1570 and 1603) and her poetry (five short devotional compositions written in 1595, addressed to her spiritual mentor Theodore de Beze). Catherine de Bourbon’s later years were marked by heavy financial burdens and ill health. She died in Nancy of tuberculosis at the age of forty-five.
Melanie Gregg
See also Albret, Jeanne d’; the subheading Letter Writing (under Literary Culture and Women); Marguerite de Navarre; Religious Reform and Women.
Bibliography
Primary Work
Bourbon, Catherine de. Lettres et poesies de Catherine de Bourbon (1570—1603). Edited by Raymond Ritter. Paris: Champion, 1927.
Secondary Works
Armaille, Marie Celestine Amelie, Comtesse de.
Catherine de Bourbon: soeur d’Henri IV. Paris: Didier et Cie, 1865.
Melchior-Bonnet, Sabine. Catherine de Bourbon, I’insoumise. Paris: NiL Editions, 1999.
Ritter, Raymond. Catherine de Bourbon 1559—1604: La soeur d’Henri IR Paris: J. Touzot, 1985.
Tucoo-Chala, Pierre. Catherine de Bourbon: Une calviniste exemplaire. Biarritz, France: Atlantica, 1997.
World History
