by Susan Flantzer  © Unofficial Royalty 2020

Claude of France, Duchess of Brittany, the first wife of François I, King of France, was born on October 13, 1499, in Romorantin-Lanthenay, France. Her father was King Louis XII of France who had succeeded his second cousin once removed, King Charles VIII, because Charles had no surviving sons to succeed him, nor any surviving daughters either. Louis XII was the great-grandson of King Charles V of France through his second surviving son Louis I, Duke of Orléans, and the next in line of the throne after the line of Charles V’s eldest son and successor King Charles VI of France, represented by King Charles VIII, died out.

Claude’s mother was King Louis XII’s second wife Anne, Duchess of Brittany in her own right. Anne had been King Charles VIII’s wife and during her marriage to Charles VIII, she had three stillbirths, three children who died in infancy, and one son who died from measles at age three. Before he became king, Louis XII had been in a childless marriage to Jeanne of France, the sister of King Charles VIII. After he succeeded to the throne, Louis XII decided to annul his 22-year marriage to Jeanne and marry the younger Anne of Brittany in hopes of a male heir.

Claude was her parents’ first child. She received her name, somewhat unusual for a female, because her mother had made a pilgrimage to the burial site of Saint Claude of Besançon, a 7th-century French bishop who became a popular French saint, in the hope of having a living child after the sad pregnancy history of her first marriage. However, Anne’s poor obstetrical history persisted. Louis XII and Anne had four stillborn sons and three miscarriages. Claude and her sister Renée were their only surviving children. In fact, out of Anne’s total of sixteen pregnancies from her two marriages, Claude and Renée were her only surviving children. The lack of sons again created a succession problem because France followed the Salic Law which allowed only male succession.

Claude had one surviving sibling:

• Princess Renée of France (1510 – 1574), married Ercole II, Duke of Ferrara, had five children

Because Louis XII and his first wife had no children, upon Louis XII’s accession to the French throne, four-year-old François, Count of Angoulême (the future King François I of France) became the heir presumptive to the French throne and remained the heir throughout Louis XII’s reign due to his lack of sons. François was a great-great-grandson of King Charles V of France through Charles V’s second surviving son Louis I, Duke of Orléans whose descendants were members of the Orléans cadet branch of the ruling House of Valois.

Because her parents had no sons, Claude was the heir to her mother’s Duchess of Brittany. The Duchy of Brittany was located on the northwestern peninsula of modern France, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west and the English Channel to the north. Queen Anne did not want to leave her daughter without her Brittany inheritance and with the help of Cardinal Georges d’Amboise, separated the Duchy of Brittany from the French crown.

In 1501, a marriage contract was signed between the two-year-old Claude and the fifteen-year-old future Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. However, in 1505, Louis XII became very ill and fearing for his life, and not wishing to threaten the reign of François, his heir, he canceled the 1501 marriage contract in favor of the eventual marriage of Claude and François. A marriage with François would mean that the Duchy of Brittany would remain united with the French crown if François succeeded Louis XII.

Weakened by sixteen pregnancies in twenty years, 36-year-old Anne, Queen of France, Duchess of Brittany died from a kidney stone attack on January 9, 1514, at the Château de Blois in Blois, France. Fourteen-year-old Claude succeeded her mother as Duchess of Brittany.

On May 18, 1514, François and Claude were married in the chapel at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

They had seven children:

• Louise (1515 – 1517), died in childhood, engaged to King Charles I of Spain (later also Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor)
• Charlotte (1516 – 1524), died in childhood from measles, engaged to King Charles I of Spain (later also Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor)
• François III, Duke of Brittany (1518 – 1536), unmarried, succeeded his mother Claude as Duke of Brittany, died aged 18
• Henri II, King of France (1519 – 1559), married Catherine de’ Medici, had ten children, including three Kings of France: François II, Charles IX, and Henri III
• Madeleine (1520 – 1537), married James V, King of Scots (1st wife), no children, died six months after the marriage from tuberculosis
• Charles II, Duke of Orléans (1522 – 1545), unmarried, died at age 23
• Marguerite of France, Duchess of Berry (1523 – 1574), married Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, had one son

After Anne of Brittany’s death, the 52-year-old Louis XII, still seeking a son to succeed him, married 18-year-old Mary Tudor, the younger sister of King Henry VIII of England, in a proxy marriage on August 19, 1514, at Greenwich Palace in England and then in person in France on October 9, 1514. However, the marriage did not last long. Louis XII died on January 1, 1515, just three months after the wedding. He was succeeded by his son-in-law as King François I of France. François was crowned King of France on January 25, 1515, at Notre-Dame de Reims (Reims Cathedral), the traditional site for the coronation of the Kings of France. Claude’s coronation took place on May 10, 1517, at the Basilica of Saint-Denis near Paris. Most likely the delay in Claude’s coronation was due to her first two pregnancies.

Queen Claude, Duchess of Brittany, aged 24, died on July 20, 1524, at the Château de Blois in Blois, France. It is suspected that Claude had tuberculosis and contracted syphilis from her husband and certainly seven pregnancies in eight years weakened her health. Claude was buried at the Basilica of Saint-Denis near Paris.

In 1530, François married the widow of King Manuel I of Portugal, Eleanor, Archduchess of Austria, Infanta of Castile from the House of Habsburg. She was the daughter of Philip of Habsburg, Duke of Burgundy and Juana I, Queen of Castile and León, co-sovereigns of the Kingdom of Castile, and the sister of Charles V, Emperor of Austria. François preferred his mistresses, ignored Eleanor, and the marriage was childless. François survived Claude by twenty-three years, dying on March 31, 1547, at the Château de Rambouillet in Rambouillet, France at the age of 52 and was buried with Claude.

François and Claude’s tomb was desecrated during the French Revolution in October 1793. Archaeologist Alexandre Lenoir was able to save the tomb and preserved it at the Museum of French Monuments. The tomb was returned to the Basilica of Saint-Denis during the Second Bourbon Restoration (1815 – 1830).

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France Resources at Unofficial Royalty

• Kingdom of France/French Empire Index
• French Royal Burial Sites – House of Valois

Works Cited

• En.wikipedia.org. 2020. Claude Of France. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_of_France> [Accessed 15 June 2020].
• Flantzer, Susan, 2020. François I, King Of France. [online] Unofficial Royalty. Available at: <https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/François-i-king-of-france/> [Accessed 15 June 2020].
• Fr.wikipedia.org. 2020. Claude De France (1499-1524). [online] Available at: <https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_de_France_(1499-1524)> [Accessed 15 June 2020].
• Ru.wikipedia.org. 2020. Клод Французская. [online] Available at: <https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B4_%D0%A4%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%86%D1%83%D0%B7%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F> [Accessed 15 June 2020]. (Claude of France from Russian Wikipedia)