Anne of Austria

For other women named Anne of Austria, see Anna of Austria (disambiguation)

Anne of Austria
Anne of Austria by Jean Nocret
Queen consort of France and Navarre
Tenure	November 24, 1615 – May 14, 1643
Spouse	Louis XIII of France
Issue
Louis XIV of France Philippe I, Duke of Orléans
House	House of Habsburg House of Bourbon
Father	Philip III of Spain
Mother	Margaret of Austria
Born	22 September 1601(1601-09-22) Benavente Palace, Valladolid, Spain
Died	20 January 1666(1666-01-20) (aged 64) Paris, France

Anne of Austria (22 September 1601 – 20 January 1666) was Queen consort of France and Navarre and regent for her son, Louis XIV of France. During her regency (1643–1651) Cardinal Mazarin served as France's chief minister.

Early life

Ana and her brother, the future Philip IV of Spain by Bartolomé González y Serrano (1612)

Born at Benavente Palace in Valladolid, Spain, and baptised Ana María Mauricia, she was the daughter of Habsburg parents, Philip III of Spain and Margaret of Austria. She held the titles of Infanta of Spain and of Portugal and Archduchess of Austria.

Life in France

Marriage

Anne was betrothed at age 11 to Louis XIII. Her father, Philip, gave her a dowry of 500,000 crowns and many beautiful jewels.^[1] For fear that Louis XIII would die early, they said that if this was the case, she would return to Spain with her dowry, jewels, and wardrobe.^[1] The pecuniary arrangements being thus satisfied, Anne was saluted as the Queen of France, "a dignity which her Highness accepts with marvellous dignity and gravity".^[1] On 24 November 1615, they were married by proxy in Burgos while Louis's sister, Elizabeth, and Anne's brother, Philip IV of Spain, were married by proxy in Bordeaux. These marriages followed the tradition of cementing military and political alliances between France and Spain that began with the marriage of Philip II of Spain to Elisabeth of Valois in 1559 as part of the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis. Anne and Elisabeth were exchanged on the Isle of Pheasants, between Hendaye and Fuenterrabía.

Anne was a noted equestrian.She was also lively and beautiful.

Anne and Louis, both 14 years old, were pressured to consummate the marriage in order to forestall any possibility of future annulment, but Louis ignored his bride. Louis's mother, Marie de' Medici, continued to conduct herself as Queen of France, without any deference to her daughter-in-law. Anne, surrounded by her entourage of high-born Spanish ladies-in-waiting, continued to live according to Spanish etiquette and failed to improve her French.

In 1617, Louis conspired with Charles d'Albert, duc de Luynes to dispense with the influence of his mother in a palace coup d'état, having her favorite Concino Concini assassinated on 26 April of that year. During the years he was in the ascendancy, the duc de Luynes attempted to remedy the formal distance between Louis and his queen. He sent away the Spanish ladies and replaced them with French ones, notably the princesse de Conti and Marie de Rohan-Montbazon, his wife, and organized court events that would bring the couple together under amiable circumstances. Anne began to dress in the French manner, and in 1619 Luynes pressed the King to bed his Queen: some affection developed, to the point where it was noted that Louis was distracted during a serious illness of the Queen.

A series of miscarriages disenchanted the King and served to chill their relations. On 14 March 1622, while playing with her ladies, Anne fell on a staircase and suffered her second miscarriage, for which Louis blamed her and was angry with Mme de Luynes for having encouraged the Queen in what was seen as negligence. Henceforth, the King had less tolerance for the influence the duchesse de Luynes had over Anne, and the situation deteriorated after the death of Luynes (December 1621). The King's attention was monopolized by his war against the Protestants, while the Queen defended the remarriage of her inseparable companion, center of all court intrigue, to her lover, the duc de Chevreuse, in 1622.

House of Habsburg
Spanish line

Emperor Charles V (King Charles I)
Children
Philip II of Spain
Maria, Holy Roman Empress
Joan of Spain
Don John (illegitimate)
Margaret of Parma (illegitimate)
Philip II
Children include
Carlos, Prince of Asturias
Isabella of Spain
Catherine, Duchess of Savoy
Philip III of Spain
Maria of Spain
Philip III
Children include
Anne, Queen of France
Philip IV of Spain
Maria Ana, Holy Roman Empress
Infante Carlos
Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand
Philip IV
Children include
Balthasar Charles, Prince of Asturias
Maria Theresa, Queen of France
Margaret, Holy Roman Empress
Charles II of Spain
Charles II

Louis turned now to Cardinal Richelieu as his advisor; Richelieu's foreign policy of struggle against the Habsburgs, who surrounded France on two fronts, inevitably created tension between himself and Anne, who remained childless for another sixteen years, while Louis depended ever more on Richelieu, who was his first minister from 1624.

Under the influence of la Chevreuse, the Queen let herself be drawn into political opposition to Richelieu and became embroiled in several intrigues against his policies. Vague rumors of betrayal circulated in the court, notably her supposed involvement with the conspiracies of the comte de Chalais that La Chevreuse organized in 1626, then of the king's treacherous lover, Cinq-Mars, who had been introduced by Richelieu.

In 1635, France declared war on Spain, placing the Queen in an untenable position. Her secret correspondence with her brother Philip IV of Spain passed beyond the requirements of sisterly affection. In August 1637, Anne was suspected, with enough cause that Richelieu forced her to sign covenants regarding her correspondence, which was henceforth open to inspection. The duchesse de Chevreuse was exiled and close watch was kept on the Queen.

Birth of an heir

Anne with her sons: the future King Louis XIV of France, and Philippe I, Duke of Orléans.

They saw in the arms of this princess whom they had watched suffer great persecutions with so much staunchness, their child-King, like a gift given by Heaven in answer to their prayers.

—Madame de Motteville, Memoires^[2]

Surprisingly, in such a climate of distrust, the Queen was soon pregnant once more, a circumstance that contemporary gossip attributed to a single stormy night that prevented Louis from travelling to Saint-Maur and obliged him to spend the night with the queen.^[3] Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638, securing the Bourbon line. At this time, Anne was thirty-seven.^[2] The official newspaper, Gazette de France, called the birth "a marvel when it was least expected".^[2] One German diplomat would refer to the King's 'quite extraordinary birth' forty years after the event.^[2]

The birth soon afterwards of a second son failed to reestablish confidence between the royal couple. It was at Saint-Germain-en-Laye that Anne gave birth to her second son; Philippe de France, Duke of Anjou and later the founder of the modern House of Orléans.

Richelieu made Louis a gift of his palatial hôtel, the Palais Cardinal, north of the Louvre in 1636, but the King never took possession: Anne fled the Louvre to install herself there with her two small sons, and remained as Regent (hence the name Palais-Royal the structure still carries) Louis tried to prevent Anne from obtaining the regency after his death, which came in 1643, not long after that of Richelieu.

Regent of France

Anne in her later years.

Anne was named regent upon her husband's death. With the aid of Pierre Séguier, she had the Parlement de Paris revoke the will of the late king, which would have limited her powers. Their four-year-old son was crowned King Louis XIV of France. Anne assumed the regency but to general surprise entrusted the government to the chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, who was a protegé of Cardinal Richelieu and figured among the council of the regency. Mazarin left the hôtel Tuboeuf to take up residence at the Palais Royal near Queen Anne. Before long he was believed to be her lover, and, it was hinted, even her husband.

With Mazarin's support, Anne overcame the revolt of aristocrats, led by Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, that became known as the Fronde. In 1651, when her son Louis XIV officially came of age, her regency legally ended. However, she kept much power and influence over her son until the death of Mazarin.

Later life

Anne with her beloved niece and daughter-in-law, Maria Theresa of Spain, and grandson, Louis.

In 1659, the war with Spain ended with the Treaty of the Pyrenees. The following year, peace was cemented by the marriage of the young King to Anne's niece, the Spanish Habsburg princess Maria Theresa of Spain.

In 1661, on the death of Mazarin, Anne, always a principal patron of the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrament. It was in that year that an heir to the throne was born, her first grandchild Louis de France. Many children would follow but all would die apart from Louis. Some time after, Anne retired to the Compagnie's convent of Val-de-Grâce where she later died of breast cancer five years later. Her lady-in-waiting, Madame de Motteville wrote the story of the queen's life in her Mémoires d'Anne d'Autriche. Many view her as a brilliant and cunning woman and she is one of the central figures in Alexandre Dumas, père's novel, The Three Musketeers and its sequels.

Issue

The couple had the following children:

In arts

She is one of the central figures in Alexandre Dumas's novel, The Three Musketeers.

Ancestry

References

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} "Amazon.com: The Married Life of Anne of Austria: Queen of France, Mother of Louis Xiv (1913) (9781112021442): Martha Walker Freer: Books". amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/Married-Life-Anne-Austria-France/dp/1112021442/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271136683&sr=1-7#reader_1112021442. Retrieved 13 April 2010. 
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3} "Amazon.com: Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King (9781400033744): Antonia Fraser: Books". amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/reader/1400033748/ref=rdr_sb_li_hist_1&state=01101#reader_1400033748. Retrieved 13 April 2010. 
3. ↑ In fact the couple spent the week of 23 to 30 November 1637 together at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the presumed time of the conception of the Dauphin Louis Dieudonné