Claude of France

Claude
Duchess of Brittany
Reign	9 January 1514 – 20 July 1524
Predecessor	Anne
Successor	Francis III
Queen consort of France
Tenure	1 January 1515 – 20 July 1524
Spouse	Francis I of France
among others... Issue
Charlotte of Valois Francis III, Duke of Brittany Henry II of France Madeleine, Queen of Scots Charles, Duke of Orléans Margaret, Duchess of Savoy
House	House of Valois
Father	Louis XII of France
Mother	Anne, Duchess of Brittany
Born	(1499-10-13)13 October 1499[1] Romorantin-Lanthenay[1]
Died	20 July 1524(1524-07-20) (aged 24) Château de Blois
Burial	Saint Denis Basilica
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Claude of France (13 October 1499^[1] – 20 July 1524) was queen consort of France and duchess regnant of Brittany. She was the eldest daughter of Louis XII of France and Anne of Brittany, as well as the first spouse of Francis I of France.

Queen Claude was named after Claudius of Besançon, a saint her mother had invoked during a pilgrimage so she could give birth to a living child.

Betrothals and marriage

Because her mother, Anne, Duchess of Brittany, had no surviving sons, Claude became heiress to the Duchy of Brittany. The crown of France, however, could pass only to and through male heirs, according to Salic Law. In 1504, Anne, eager to keep Brittany separate from the French crown, effected the Treaty of Blois, which promised Claude's hand in marriage to the future Holy Roman Emperor Charles V with the promise of Brittany and the Duchy of Burgundy. The prospect of a reduced France surrounded on several sides was unacceptable to the Valois, and so the betrothal was soon canceled.

The French nobles argued against a betrothal to a foreigner, urging Louis XII to marry Claude to her cousin Francis, Duke of Angoulême, "who is at least all French", and was also the heir-presumptive to the French crown. In 1506, the child was betrothed to Francis. In 1514, when her mother died, Claude became Duchess of Brittany; and on 18 May 1514, at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, she married Francis.

Court life

Claude, the pawn of so much dynastic maneuvering, was short in stature and afflicted with scoliosis, which gave her a hunched back. She was eclipsed at court by her mother-in-law, Louise of Savoy, and her sister-in-law, the literary Navarrese queen Margaret of Angoulême.

When Francis became king in 1515, after the death of Louis XII mere months after his wedding to Mary Tudor of England, Anne Boleyn stayed on as one of Claude's household. It is assumed that Anne served as Claude's translator whenever there were English visitors, such as in 1520, at the Field of Cloth of Gold. Anne Boleyn returned to England in late 1521, where she eventually became Queen of England as the second wife of Henry VIII. Diane de Poitiers, another of Claude's ladies, was a principal inspiration of the School of Fontainebleau of the French Renaissance, and became the lifelong mistress of Claude's son, Henry II.

Claude's life was spent in an endless round of annual pregnancies. Her husband had many mistresses, but was usually relatively discreet. Claude imposed a strict moral code on her own household, which only a few chose to flout.

Children

Claude and Francis I had seven children, two of whom lived past the age of thirty:

• Louise (19 August 1515 – 21 September 1517) - died young, engaged to Charles I of Spain almost from birth until death.
• Charlotte (23 October 1516 – 8 September 1524) - died young, engaged to Charles I of Spain from 1518 until death.
• Francis (28 February 1518 – 10 August 1536), who succeeded Claude as Duke of Brittany, but died unmarried and childless.
• Henry (31 March 1519 – 10 July 1559), who succeeded Francis I as King of France and married Catherine de' Medici, by whom he had issue.
• Madeleine (10 August 1520 – 2 July 1537), who married James V of Scotland and had no issue.
• Charles (22 January 1522 – 9 September 1545), who died unmarried and childless.
• Margaret of France, Duchess of Berry (5 June 1523 – 14 September 1574), who married Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, in 1559 and had issue.

Death and later events

Coat of arms of Queen Claude

Claude died in 1524, when she was twenty-four. She was initially succeeded as ruler of Brittany by her eldest son, the Dauphin Francis, who became Duke Francis III, with Claude's widower King Francis I as guardian. After the Dauphin's death in 1536, Claude's second son, Henry, Duke of Orleans, became Dauphin and Duke of Brittany. He later became King of France as Henry II.

Claude's widowed husband himself remarried several years after Claude's death, to Eleanor of Austria, the sister of Emperor Charles V. The atmosphere at court became considerably more debauched, and there were rumours that King Francis's death in 1547 was due to syphilis.

The prayer book of Claude of France, is a tiny, jewel-like manuscript that was made for Claude around 1517, the year she was crowned queen of France. Her coat of arms appears on three different folios. The book is richly illustrated: the borders of each leaf are painted, front and back, with 132 scenes from the lives of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and numerous saints. The manuscript and a companion Book of Hours also made for the queen (in a Paris private collection) were illuminated by an artist who was given the nickname Master of Claude de France after these two volumes. It was donated to The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City in 2008 by the widow of Alexandre Paul Rosenberg in memory of her husband.^[2]

"Reine Claude" plum

Claude is remembered in a classic small plum, the size of a walnut, pale green with a glaucous bloom. It is still called "Reine Claude" (literally, "Queen Claude") in France and is known in England as a "greengage".

Depictions in Popular Culture

Queen Claude of France is played by Gabriella Wright in season one of the Showtime series The Tudors.
"Kind Queen Claude" is a major character in Robin Maxwell's Mademoiselle Boleyn.

Ancestry

References