Anne of Austria, Queen of France

by Scott Mehl  © Unofficial Royalty 2016

Anne of Austria, Queen of Spain; Credit – Wikipedia

Anne of Austria was the wife of King Louis XIII of France and served as Regent from 1643-1651. She was born Ana María Mauricia, Infanta of Spain and Portugal, on September 22, 1601, at Benavente Palace in Valladolid, Spain. Although a Spanish Infanta, she was known as Ana of Austria, as the Spanish monarchs at the time were members of the House of Habsburg. The eldest daughter of King Felipe III of Spain and Margaret of Austria, Ana had seven younger siblings:

Ana was raised at the Royal Alcazar of Madrid in Spain in a very close and loving family. She was given a very strong religious upbringing, and often visited convents and churches. After her mother’s death in childbirth in 1611, Ana became a surrogate mother to her younger siblings and maintained a very close relationship with her father.

Anne of Austria, circa 1607. source: Wikipedia

At just ten years old, Ana was betrothed to King Louis XIII of France, the son of King Henri IV of France and Marie de’ Medici, and given a large dowry and an extensive collection of jewels. The marriage contract required her to give up her rights to the Spanish throne but provided them to be restored if she were to become a childless widow. It also stipulated that if that happened, she would return to Spain with her entire dowry, as well as her jewels and wardrobe.

The couple was married by proxy on October 18, 1615, in Burgos, Spain. The same day, her brother and Louis’s sister were married by proxy in Bordeaux, France. This followed the tradition of marriages between the French and Austrian royal families. Upon her arrival in France, Ana and Louis were married on November 24, 1615, at the Bordeaux Cathedral. Just 14 at the time, it was allegedly several years before the marriage was consummated.

The marriage was strained from the onset. Taking up her apartments in the Louvre Palace in Paris, France, Ana was more or less ignored by her new husband. Her mother-in-law, Marie de’ Medici, refused to give any deference to Ana, who was the new Queen of France. Ana herself didn’t do much to ingratiate herself with her new family and country. She surrounded herself with nearly 100 Spanish ladies, and continued to abide by Spanish etiquette, and made little effort to learn the French language. It would several years before the relationship between Ana and Louis would begin to thaw.

In 1617, King Louis took full control of the monarchy from his mother (who had been serving as Regent) and sent her into exile. His advisor, Charles d’Albert, Duke of Luynes, made it his mission to bring Louis and Ana closer together. He replaced her Spanish entourage with French ladies-in-waiting and arranged for various court functions that would have both of them in attendance. Through his influence, as well as Anne’s new French ladies, she started to dress and carry herself in more of a French style. Reportedly, it was Luynes who then encouraged Louis to consummate their marriage, resulting in the birth of a stillborn child, the first of four stillborn births over the next 12 years.

Anne with her two sons; Credit – Wikipedia

Finally, after nearly 23 years of marriage, Queen gave birth to the first of two healthy sons:

In 1625, when Louis’s sister Henriette married King Charles I of England, Anne and her mother-in-law accompanied Henriette to the French border where they were met by George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, who was to accompany Henriette back to England. Supposedly, Buckingham made advances to Queen Anne, causing quite a scandal throughout the courts of Europe. He was subsequently forbidden from setting foot on French soil. The truth of this story is questionable.

Continuing to visit convents and churches in her new country just as she had done in Spain, Queen Anne found a friend in Marguerite de Veny d’Arbouse, a prioress at the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce de-la-Ville-d’Evêque. Anne arranged for the establishment of an abbey with Marguerite as Abbess, and in 1621, the Queen herself purchased land in Paris and had the convent moved there. She had a small church built, as well as an apartment for herself. This would become her refuge several times during her marriage, as well as in her later years. Years later, after her husband’s death, Queen Anne commissioned the building of the Church of the Val-de-Grâce.

More strain came to Anne’s relationship with her husband when France declared war on Spain in 1635. Very close with her brother, King Felipe IV of Spain, Anne kept up a secret correspondence that put her under great suspicion. Two years later, Cardinal Richelieu, her husband’s senior minister, forced Anne to allow her correspondence to be inspected, and she was kept under close watch.

King Louis XIII died in 1643, leaving his five-year-old son as the new King Louis XIV. In his will, the late King sought to limit any power that Queen Anne might have had, including becoming Regent. He instructed that a regency council be established instead. However, just days after his death, Queen Anne was able to convene the Parliament of Paris and had that part of his will overturned. Anne was named sole Regent for her young son. She then took her two sons and moved from the Louvre Palace to the Palais-Royal in Paris, formerly the Palais-Cardinal, home of Cardinal Richelieu.

Queen Anne in her later years – source: Wikipedia

Queen Anne appointed Cardinal Jules Mazarin as her chief minister and relied on him to maintain the government. The two were rumored to be lovers, or perhaps even secretly married, although nothing has ever been proven. Anne retained much of her power even after her son came of age in 1651. She oversaw his marriage to her own niece, Maria Teresa of Spain in 1660, and the following year, after Mazarin’s death, Queen Anne stepped aside and retired to the Covent of Val-de-Grâce in Paris, France. Five years later, on January 20, 1666, she died there of breast cancer. She is buried in the Basilica of Saint-Denis near Paris.

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