Anne of Brittany

Anne of Brittany experienced a lot of loss from the time she was very young. As she aged and became more and more central to political events of her day, she remained dedicated to protecting the autonomy of the duchy of Brittany.

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• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:03Holly Frey?

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• 2:13Holly Frey?

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• 2:30Holly Frey?

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• 2:51Tracy V. Wilson?

  Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

• 2:54Holly Frey?

  And I'm Holly Frey.

• 2:55Tracy V. Wilson?

  A few months ago, I read a book called The Unicorn Hunters by Catherine Arden, and that's a historical fantasy that reimagines the life of Anne of Brittany. I started this book knowing that Anne was a real person and that the unicorn tapestries that the Met Cloisters might have been made in honor of her wedding to King Louis XII of France, but I did not know much about Anne beyond that. I wound up finding the book's fictionalized depiction of this person to be really compelling. She is so young. I think not quite as young as when some of these things happened in her real life, but she's also shown as being just very shrewd and a great sense of political strategy,

• 3:41Tracy V. Wilson?

  but also just deeply devoted to keeping her home of Brittany free from French rule. So I put her on the list for an episode. This book is a novel. It keeps some moments from Anne's real life, but it also makes some changes for the sake of the story. And in some ways, the novel is a little happier and less tragic than parts of Anne's life were. In the real world, Anne's entire immediate family died when she was very young. And then after she was married, she went through a series of pregnancy losses and deaths of children. But the dedication that this novel shows to protecting the autonomy of the Duchy of Brittany was definitely very real.

• 4:25Tracy V. Wilson?

  Also, a lot of people in this episode are known by multiple names, mostly different versions of the same name in English, French, and Breton. And I wound up just using the ones that were used mostly in my source material, which is mostly the Anglicized versions, trying to standardize everything into Breton or French, when some people just aren't known that it became very confusing.

• 4:56Holly Frey?

  Brittany is a region of France today, known in French as Bretagne, known in Breton as Bries. It's on the Armorican Peninsula in the northwestern part of France, directly south of the southwestern part of the island of Great Britain. The name Brittany comes from the migration of Celts from Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries. Breton is an insular Celtic language, like Cornish, Welsh, and Irish, and it's the only Celtic language spoken on the European mainland today.

• 5:26Tracy V. Wilson?

  The Duchy of Brittany was established in the 10th century, and for about the next 500 years, it struggled to maintain its independence. Like the rest of that part of Europe, it had been fighting off raids and invasions from the Norse, and then it also faced pressures from England and from the various kingdoms and duchies that would eventually coalesce into France.

• 5:50Holly Frey?

  Anne's father, Francis II, became Duke of Brittany in 1548, which was near the end of the Hundred Years' War between England and France. Brittany had attempted to remain neutral during much of this complicated and intermittent conflict. The war had also taken up a lot of the resources and attention of Brittany's closest neighbors. But a few years after the Hundred Years' War ended, Louis XI became King of France and started trying to establish full sovereignty over his nobles and the leaders of various vassal kingdoms and duchies, including Brittany. In 1465, Francis joined the League of the Public Wheel, a coalition of duchies and counties that fought against the king and his allies.

• 6:35Holly Frey?

  For a few months, they won several concessions under a series of treaties that same year.

• 6:41Tracy V. Wilson?

  Anne was born on January 25, 1477, in Nantes, which was Brittany's largest city. It had a population of about 14,000 people. She had an older half-brother, Francis I d'Avagour, who was born to Francis II, and Antoinette de Manielle in 1462. This was before Francis was married to Anne's mother, Margaret of Fois, but at the time, he was married to someone else. That was Margaret of Brittany, who died in 1469.

• 7:14Holly Frey?

  Francis, of course, wanted a male heir. His only son with Margaret of Brittany had died as a baby, and of course, his son that was born out of wedlock did not count for the line of succession. But he was reportedly delighted when Anne was born, taking her up to the roof of the fortress chateau where they were living so that the people below could call their congratulations up to her.

• 7:37Tracy V. Wilson?

  Anne was born with some kind of congenital hip issue, and that may have also affected her spine. As she got older, she wore shoes with one heel that was taller than the other to help compensate for a limp. She was described as charming and precocious, and a quick study under her tutor, Francoise de Denon, who was an heiress who was described as one of the greatest ladies of the Duchy. Francoise also taught Anne's sister, Isabelle, who was born in 1478.

• 8:07Holly Frey?

  As a child, Anne learned the typical subjects of singing, dancing, embroidery, deportment, and how to run a household. She loved literature, including writing poems of her own, and she also learned Latin and Greek. She was described as fashionable and clever in her dress, including designing some of her own clothing, so near and dear to my heart. She also loved the outdoors, including riding horses and spending time in the gardens. And she played tennis, the version known today as real tennis, which was played in indoor courts.

• 8:41Tracy V. Wilson?

  In 1481, when Anne was four, her father arranged a marriage to Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Edward IV and heir to the throne of England. Under this arrangement, in the event of the prince's death, Anne would marry his younger brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York. Of course, this marriage never happened. On April 9, 1483, 12-year-old Edward ascended to the throne as Edward V, but his claim to the throne was attacked as illegitimate, and he and his brother were captured. It is not fully clear what happened to them, but they became known as the Princes in the Tower, which is a whole other story we have covered on the show before.

• 9:26Tracy V. Wilson?

  I just re-listened to this old episode, and it is even more convoluted than I remembered.

• 9:34Holly Frey?

  Another potential husband for Anne was Henry Tudor, who had spent some time in exile in Brittany, starting in 1471. Like the princes in the tower situation, Henry Tudor's exile was interconnected with the War of the Roses, between the English royal houses of York and Lancaster. That is also, of course, a whole other story.

• 9:55Tracy V. Wilson?

  There was also Louis, Duke de Orleans, who made several visits to the court of Francis II. Enough visits that there were rumors that he was seeking the hand of Anne or Isabelle, even though he was already married to Jeanne de Valois, the daughter of Louis XI and sister to his successor, Charles VIII. Charles came to the French throne in 1483.

• 10:19Holly Frey?

  The question of Anne's eventual marriage was still unanswered when her father got involved in another conflict with the French monarchy, known as the Mat War in 1485. So the Mat War grew out of the same issues that had led to the War of the Public Wheel and the outcome of that war. Several rebelling nobles had gotten new lands and titles after the War of the Public Wheel, but King Louis had not upheld the terms of those treaties for very long. Charles VIII was only 13 when he came to the throne, and his sister Anne was acting as his regent. And all those same power struggles were still going on. The last major battle of the Mat War was the Battle of Saint Aubin du Cormier,

• 11:03Holly Frey?

  at which Anne's father had the support of England, Spain, and Austria. Even with all of that support, Francis was still outnumbered, and his forces were defeated on July 28, 1488.

• 11:17Tracy V. Wilson?

  After this loss, Francis was forced to sign the Treaty of Verges, also known as the Treaty of the Orchard, and as the Treaty of Sabley, for the place where it was signed. Under the terms of this treaty, Brittany had to cede four cities to France. Francis also had to expel any foreigners who had sided with him against the king, and any marriage for Anne or Isabelle would have to be approved by the King of France.

• 11:47Holly Frey?

  Anne and Isabelle's lives were already in disarray when this happened. Their mother had died on March 15, 1486, when Anne was nine and Isabelle was eight. And after this, they had moved around with their father, going from castle to castle and fort to fort, depending on where he thought they would be the safest, both from the ongoing conflict with France and from a plague that was spreading through Brittany. Francis was in his early 50s when the girl's mother died, but it did not seem likely that he would marry again in order to try to have a male heir. In Brittany, a woman could rule the duchy if there was no male heir. So Francis started trying to arrange a marriage that would allow one of his daughters to retain control.

• 12:30Holly Frey?

  Potential candidates included Louis of Orleans, in spite of that pesky, already married situation, Maximilian I of Austria, and Alain d'Albray, a French noble who had sided with Anne's father in the Mat War.

• 12:44Tracy V. Wilson?

  But Francis had not finalized a marriage agreement yet by the time he unexpectedly died on September 9, 1488, after a fall from his horse. His will named guardians for his daughters, including the girl's governess, but he did not name a husband for either of them.

• 13:03Holly Frey?

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• 15:23Tracy V. Wilson?

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• 15:47Holly Frey?

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• 16:32Holly Frey?

  Tune in to find out. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 16:48Tracy V. Wilson?

  When Anne's father died in 1488, she became Duchess of Brittany at the age of 11, although she was not formally crowned until February 10 of the following year. In the words of biographer Helen J. Sanborn, quote, "What position could have been more difficult? Ruler over a domain that had long been coveted by all of Europe, threatened on every side by the French king and his army that already held four of her cities, bound by a treaty that had sent away the English allies, deserted by many of her nobles who were won over to the service of France, embarrassed by a treasury so depleted that there was not enough money to pay her soldiers, driven from her capital by the plague

• 17:33Tracy V. Wilson?

  and harassed by many unacceptable suitors, what was the young maid to do?"

• 17:39Holly Frey?

  In terms of her previous rumored marriage prospects, she could not turn to Louis of Orleans. He had allied with her father in the Mat War and had been captured at the Battle of Saint Aubin du Cormier. He was in prison, and also still that problem of being married. Henry Tudor was now King Henry VII of England, and he was married to Elizabeth of York. Anne's Tudor thought that she should marry Alain d'Albray, but she didn't want to. She described him as a scary brute. There were some other contenders, but the main one that remained was Maximilian of Austria, who had become king of the Romans and king of Germany. But he was away on a military campaign in Hungary.

• 18:23Holly Frey?

  Anne's advisors could not agree on the best course of action, and they mostly seemed to be concerned about protecting their own interests.

• 18:31Tracy V. Wilson?

  So Anne convened the estates of Brittany, which was an assembly of clergy, nobles, and other delegates, and she informed them that her intention was to secure a marriage for herself that would protect the autonomy of Brittany. She sold some of her jewelry to pay her military, and she also wrote to Henry VII, Maximilian, and Ferdinand of Aragon to ask them all to please send her some reinforcements.

• 18:58Holly Frey?

  Meanwhile, the French sent an emissary to Brittany to offer the king's condolences on Francis's death, as well as to propose that King Charles become Anne and Isabelle's guardian. During this proposed guardianship, Charles would have control over Brittany's lands and nobles. Charles also proposed that arbiters should be appointed to settle any disputes between them, and that all foreigners should be expelled from Brittany. Anne refused to do any of this, instead saying that she had sent the Treaty of the Orchard to the estates of Brittany to be ratified, and that she intended to abide by its terms.

• 19:34Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah, the expulsion of foreigners was apparently much more than what was described in that treaty. Tragically, the treaty terms that applied to her sister Isabelle did not matter for very long because Isabelle contracted an illness and died on August 24th of 1490 at the age of 12. This meant that other than her illegitimate half-brother, Anne had lost her entire immediate family by the time she turned 13.

• 20:02Holly Frey?

  Anne also decided to disregard the treaty's requirement that any marriage be approved by the French monarch, and she secretly negotiated a marriage with Maximilian I of Austria. He was 18 years older than she was, and his wife, Mary of Burgundy, had died a few years earlier after being seriously injured, also in a fall from a horse. Since he was away on a military campaign, he could not come to Brittany to marry Anne, and it was not feasible for her to try to go to him. So they were married by proxy on December 19th of 1490. Polen, Count of Nassau, who was described as Maximilian's favorite, traveled

• 20:42Holly Frey?

  to Brittany to stand in for him at a wedding ceremony at Rennes Cathedral. Then, he symbolically consummated the marriage by putting his uncovered knee on a bed that Anne was lying in. This was witnessed by Maximilian's envoys and members of Anne's household.

• 20:59Tracy V. Wilson?

  While Anne meant for this marriage to protect Brittany from France, it had the opposite effect from within her purported allies. Alan Delbray claimed that her late father had promised him her hand in marriage, and he said that she had agreed to that marriage. Anne countered that if she had done such a thing, it was because her father had told her to, and that she had only been 10 years old at the time. Alan was outraged at her refusal, and in retaliation, he turned the castle at Nantes over to the French, apparently in exchange for a promise that Charles would help him have this proxy marriage annulled, and then support his claim to getting married to Anne himself.

• 21:44Holly Frey?

  Although the marriage between Anne and Maximilian had been negotiated in secret, it, of course, did not remain secret for long. And when Charles VIII learned about it, he saw it as a serious threat. Not only had Anne violated Brittany's treaty with France by getting married without his approval, but the marriage had united Brittany and the Habsburgs, who were enemies of France.

• 22:07Tracy V. Wilson?

  That's another whole huge story that went on for a very long time. Fighting had continued along the border between Brittany and France after the end of the Mad War, and it escalated after Charles learned of Anne's marriage. Charles arrived in Nantes with an entourage in 1491, holding court there and trying to win the support of the local Bretons. He also laid siege to the capital of Rennes, where Anne was, and he offered her 120,000 crowns for the duchy.

• 22:41Holly Frey?

  The siege of Rennes lasted for about two months until the estates of Brittany recommended that Anne marry Charles to bring an end to the war. By this point, her army was mostly made up of troops that had been sent by England and Spain, along with archers provided by her husband Maximilian. But Maximilian's focus was really elsewhere, and he didn't put a lot of effort into defending his marriage to Anne. Anne felt that she had no other choice, and that ending the war with France would be in the best interest of Brittany. She and Charles were married on December 6, 1491, and Pope Innocent VIII annulled her marriage to Maximilian early the following year.

• 23:22Tracy V. Wilson?

  There was also another marriage entanglement to deal with because Charles had been betrothed to Margaret of Austria, daughter of Maximilian I, under the Treaty of Arras, which had ended the War of the Burgundian Succession in 1482. Very broadly speaking, this was a war between the House of Habsburg and the House of Valois, or between Maximilian and King Louis XI and their various allies, part of this whole dispute between the Habsburgs and the French that was big and complicated and long. This treaty was signed when Charles was only 12 and Margaret was only two. And then afterward, Margaret had been sent to live in the French

• 24:03Tracy V. Wilson?

  court. Breaking this betrothal meant that lands that had been part of Margaret's dowry, which France had already taken control of, had to be renegotiated. But it seems like, in spite of all of this, Anne and Margaret had a cordial relationship afterward.

• 24:22Holly Frey?

  The wedding of Charles and Anne took place at the Chateau de Langer on the Loire River, on the French side of the border with Brittany. Anne left Rennes in secret, taking only a few travel companions with her, but she managed to procure a luxurious wardrobe befitting someone who was about to become Queen of France. It is not clear how she did this, how she acquired these garments, or how she paid for any of it.

• 24:48Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah, there's not like there was just a little store she could stop at on the way.

• 24:52Holly Frey?

  Right. Normally, you would have a team of people making that gown.

• 24:55Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah, yeah. Unclear, though, but reportedly, it did happen. On February 8, 1492, Anne was crowned Queen of France at the age of 15. The crown was reportedly too big and heavy for her 15-year-old head, so Louis of Orleans held it over her. She had no role in the actual governing of France, and Charles also didn't allow her to have a public role in the governing of Brittany. She may have been able to talk to him about things behind the scenes, but she wasn't able to do anything publicly involving Brittany at all. Under her marriage contract with Charles, though, if he died without a male heir, the duchy of Brittany would return to her.

• 25:40Holly Frey?

  Anne and Charles had a son, Charles Orleans, on October 11, 1492. Anne was extremely worried for the baby's health from the time of his birth, and left detailed instructions about his care any time that she and Charles traveled together. But he died on December 6, 1495, at the age of three. A smallpox outbreak was winding down around that time, although some sources say that he died of measles. But Anne really lost her trust in doctors after this.

• 26:11Tracy V. Wilson?

  Charles was described in terms like having a feeble constitution, and the doctors were worried about the effects of mourning on his health. They advised the court to arrange amusements and distractions for him. Louis of Orleans arranged a masquerade ball, which his behavior was so over the top that Anne interpreted it as celebrating her son's death, because Louis was next in line for the throne if Charles did not have an heir. So Louis was sent away to Italy, which was at war with France at the time, because Charles had decided to try to conquer it. Italy was not a unified country at this point. There

• 26:54Tracy V. Wilson?

  were the Papal States and all kinds of Italian principalities, but it was broadly speaking, Italy.

• 27:03Holly Frey?

  Anne and Charles had two other sons and a daughter, and unfortunately, they all died in infancy. Then, on April 7, 1498, Charles also died at the age of 27. He was one of multiple royals, whose deaths have been tied to tennis. He had been increasingly unwell in the days leading up to his death, and that day, he accompanied Anne to watch a tennis match. On the way into the tennis court, he hit his head on a low beam. The men around him kept him from falling all the way to the ground, and they escorted him to his seat, but afterward, he suddenly collapsed, and he never regained consciousness.

• 27:42Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah, of course, there's debate about what the actual cause of his death was. Regardless, Anne was grief-stricken after Charles's death. She stayed locked in her room for two days, weeping, but then she signed a decree, re-establishing herself as Duchess of Brittany. She summoned Louis of Orleans, now King Louis XII, back to court and asked him to arrange a large state funeral for Charles, which he did. He also agreed to remove French troops from Brittany, and she made her arrangements to go back there.

• 28:19Holly Frey?

  And we'll talk about what happened next after we pause for a sponsor break.

• 28:26Speaker 05

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• 28:54Holly Frey?

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other? Tune

• 29:39Holly Frey?

  in to find out. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 29:56Tracy V. Wilson?

  When Charles VIII died, Anne was widowed at the age of 21. But she did not remain unmarried for long. Under that marriage agreement with Charles, if he died without a male heir, in addition to the fact that Brittany would return to her, she would marry his successor. That successor was, of course, Louis XII. As we've mentioned a couple of times, though, Louis was already married. He had been forced to marry Jean de Valois in 1476, when he was 14 and she was 12. Anne and Louis seemed to have genuinely loved each other, but Anne also agreed to this marriage only if the Pope annulled his existing marriage within a year.

• 30:41Tracy V. Wilson?

  It is possible that she was hoping this annulment would not come through in time and she wouldn't have to get married, but it did. She married King Louis XII in the castle at Nantes in Brittany on January 8th, 1499.

• 30:56Holly Frey?

  While Pope Alexander VI did agree to annul this marriage, there was also some acrimonious back and forth between Louis and Jean about it. Louis claimed that the marriage should be annulled because it had never been consummated due to a physical disability that Jean had. Jean countered with witness testimony that said Louis had bragged to them about their sex life. This is like the worst divorce story ever.

• 31:21Tracy V. Wilson?

  It's really bad.

• 31:22Holly Frey?

  Then Louis claimed that he had been bewitched, which I could see a number of people trying. Ultimately, Jean was given an income and she went to Bourges, where she founded the Order of the Enunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She died in 1505 and she was canonized in 1950.

• 31:42Tracy V. Wilson?

  Although Anne's marriage to Louis had come about through her agreement with Charles, she was in a much stronger bargaining position than she had been in 1491, when she was in a city that was besieged by Charles's army. Under her agreement with Louis, on her death, the Duchy of Brittany would go either to their second son or their oldest daughter. If they did not have a second son or a daughter, it would follow the line of succession for her heirs. So Brittany, under this marriage agreement, would remain as its own Duchy, rather than just being absorbed into France.

• 32:21Tracy V. Wilson?

  She was also allowed a lot more power over Brittany than she'd had when Charles was alive.

• 32:28Holly Frey?

  Anne spent the rest of her life trying to protect Brittany's status as an independent Duchy. She was also a patron of the arts and literature. She was known for her religious piety and she commissioned multiple books of hours. Those are illuminated prayer books. One of these is known as the Grand Hours of Anne of Brittany and was illuminated by French painter Jean Bourdichon. It's in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Helen J. Sandborn, who wrote a biography of Anne, wrote, quote, "Not only is it one of the most perfect monuments of French art at the end of the 15th century, but it is also a striking proof of the delicate taste of the Queen Duchess,

• 33:08Holly Frey?

  who wisely chose skillful painters for the execution of a book which she was to use in her daily devotions."

• 33:16Tracy V. Wilson?

  These commissions took place not just during her marriage to Louis, they had been taking place this whole time. As another example, there is a book of hours illuminated by Jean Poyet, which she had planned to use to teach her son Charles Orlong his catechism. That one was purchased by John Pierpont Morgan in 1905 and is now in the collection at the Morgan Library.

• 33:39Holly Frey?

  Anne's art patronage also included sculptures for the tomb of her parents at Nantes Cathedral. These include statues of both of her parents lying on top of the sarcophagus with a lion and a greyhound at their feet. There are also life-sized allegorical statues of temperance, fortitude, prudence, and justice. The statue of justice is believed to be based on Anne's likeness.

• 34:04Tracy V. Wilson?

  Anne also established her own court in France, something that really wasn't typical at the time, and she filled it with the Daughters of Noblemen, who she provided with an education. Her court became a place for nobles and royals to look for brides who were educated and cultured and also really loved matchmaking and trying to secure the best marriages for all of her ladies. She was also very rules-oriented and strict, and she saw the obedience of all of her ladies and their living up to her very high standards as part of the trade-off for the education they were receiving and the advantageous marriages that they were making.

• 34:46Tracy V. Wilson?

  She also established a chivalric order for women, Dame de la Cordillère, and she doted on the children of the court while also still being very exacting in their discipline.

• 34:58Holly Frey?

  On October 13th, 1499, Anne and Louis had a daughter, Claude. Louis had continued the Italian campaigns that Charles had started, and when Claude was a toddler, he was injured and became very ill. Anne believed that he was going to die and started trying to make arrangements to return to Brittany and take Claude with her, including arranging to send her possessions to Nantes. This led to a huge confrontation with the commander of the castle, Peter de Rohan, Marshal de Guille. His priority was protecting Louise of Savoy and her son, Francis of Angoulême, who had been named Louis's heir and on keeping Claude from being taken away.

• 35:39Holly Frey?

  He stopped the shipment of Anne's possessions out of the castle and he prevented her from leaving. Anne is described as being kind and caring, but also really able to hold a grudge. And in this case, it involved having him charged with treason, and for that, he was exiled.

• 35:58Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah, some of her early biographers are kind of like, that Anne woman, what a shrew. She was out of her mind with this whole situation, when it really seems like she thought her husband was going to die and she was looking after her own best interests and that of her child.

• 36:12Holly Frey?

  Anne of Brittany is the definition of like the origin point of don't start none, won't be none.

• 36:19Tracy V. Wilson?

  On November 18th, 1504, Anne was crowned Queen of France for the second time, making her the only person to be crowned Queen of France twice. Her formal coronation had been delayed because of France's ongoing war with Italy and then her husband's serious illness that had led her to think he was going to die. The following year, she took a tour of Brittany for several months. In 1506, her daughter Claude was betrothed to Francis of Angoulême when she was five and he was 12.

• 36:54Holly Frey?

  This betrothal was one of the few really serious arguments that Anne had with Louis. She wanted Claude to marry Charles of Austria and had negotiated an agreement with the Archduke of Austria to this end in 1501, so when Claude was born, essentially. Anne thought that a marriage between Claude and the Habsburg would secure autonomy for Brittany, while a marriage into the French royal family would guarantee that Brittany would be subsumed into France. After Louis disregarded this arrangement and approved a betrothal to Francis, Anne was furious and went back to Brittany, and Louis became increasingly angry over her refusal to return.

• 37:35Tracy V. Wilson?

  Another disagreement, although not as major in terms of their marriage, was Louis's ongoing military efforts in Italy, which at this point were raising the ire of the Pope. Anne's feelings on this were interconnected with her religious piety, especially when the Pope started threatening to excommunicate her husband.

• 37:56Holly Frey?

  On October 25th, 1510, Anne gave birth to another daughter, Renee. She was pregnant several other times during her marriage to Louis, but these pregnancies all ended in losses and stillbirths. Anne became very ill after Renee's birth, and she was not expected to survive, and she really never fully recovered.

• 38:17Tracy V. Wilson?

  Meanwhile, France was still at war. This was part of the Italian Wars, kind of an obvious name. The Italian Wars spanned more than 60 years, starting back when Charles VIII had invaded Italy in 1494. These wars were really sprawling and complicated, and the list of belligerents evolved over time. It would probably take a whole podcast series to explain all of the Italian Wars. But in 1512, England had gotten involved in one component of it, which was known as the War of the League of Cambrai. In addition to commissioning art and literature, Anne had also commissioned warships to

• 39:01Tracy V. Wilson?

  protect the coast of Brittany. During this war, her flagship, La Cordillère, fought against English King Henry VIII's ship, the Regent, at the Battle of Saint-Mathieu on August 10th, 1512. And in that battle, both of those ships caught fire and sank.

• 39:19Holly Frey?

  In December of the following year, Anne became very ill with what is described as stone. And the term stone could describe the formation of stones in a number of internal organs. In Anne's case, this was probably her kidneys, and she was in acute pain. She died in Blois, France, on January 9th, 1514, at the age of 37. In the words of Helen J. Sandborn, quote, "Anne's life of 37 years can be called short only when measured by time. Its activities might have filled the long lives of two or three and left no leisure for ennui or idleness."

• 39:59Tracy V. Wilson?

  After Anne died, surgeons and apothecaries embalmed her body in preparation for extremely long funeral services. They went on for more than 40 days, with multiple high masses held every day in Blois for more than two weeks. Her body was taken to Paris in a procession with princes and princesses riding mules draped in velvet and all of her ladies and maids of honor on horseback. She was laid to rest in the Basilica of Saint-Denis, which was the site of both of her coronations as Queen of France. Her lengthy and elaborate funeral became a model for those of later European monarchs.

• 40:42Holly Frey?

  Anne's heart was removed from her body and placed in a reliquary, and that was sent to Nantes, where her parents were both entombed. Its inscription described her heart as grander than any lady in the world, generous and good.

• 40:56Tracy V. Wilson?

  On May 18th, 1514, Anne's 13-year-old daughter Claude married Francis Danglisle. On October 9th of that year, her husband Louis the 12th married Mary Tudor. Then he died on January 1st, 1515. Francis Danglisle was crowned as King Francis the First on what would have been Anne's 38th birthday.

• 41:21Holly Frey?

  Since her oldest daughter had been betrothed to the future King of France, Anne had left instructions for Brittany to be left to her younger daughter Renee. But King Francis did not follow these instructions. In 1528, Renee was married to Eric Cole II, Duke of Ferrara. And in 1532, King Francis invited the Duchy of Brittany to formally become part of France, which the estates of Brittany approved.

• 41:48Tracy V. Wilson?

  In 1792, during the French Revolution, the reliquary containing Anne's heart was ordered to be melted down. By that point, the reliquary was empty. Either the heart had previously been removed, or it had just disintegrated over the centuries. But somebody hid the reliquary in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and it was returned to not in 1819. It is there now in a museum. It was stolen from that museum and then recovered in 2018.

• 42:20Holly Frey?

  So we're going to end on the unicorn tapestries, which Tracy mentioned at the top of the show. The tapestries were given to the Met by John D. Rockefeller Jr. in 1937. At the time, James J. Rohrimer was curator at the Cloisters, and he would later become director of the Met. He proposed that the tapestries were commissioned to commemorate Anne's marriage to King Louis the 12th in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin in 1942.

• 42:47Tracy V. Wilson?

  In the tapestries, the letter A appears alongside a backward E repeatedly. And Rohrimer interpreted this as being the first and last letters of Anne's name. The tapestries also used cordelier, or twisted cords, in the initials and elsewhere. The cordelier was an important symbol to Anne. She named her chivalric order Dame de la Cordelier. Her flagship was also called La Cordelier. And then she also used cordelier in all of her clothing, emblems, decorations, just all over the place. There's also a woman depicted in some of the tapestries who resembles some known depictions of Anne.

• 43:30Tracy V. Wilson?

  All of this is interesting, but there's not actually definitive proof of who commissioned these tapestries or for whom. But that is Anne of Brittany.

• 43:40Holly Frey?

  Do you have listener mail?

• 43:42Tracy V. Wilson?

  I do have listener mail. This listener mail is from Rosemary, who wrote, "After our recent installment of Unearthed, we read about a study that had been about the pre-modern diets of people in Osaka, Japan." And I said I had been trying to figure out what exact years were meant by pre-modern Osaka, Japan, because that wasn't in the abstract or the news reporting. And here is the very helpful email that I got from Rosemary. Rosemary says, "Hi, Holly and Tracy. I just finished listening to the Unearthed and wanted to follow up on the Osaka diet excerpt. It looks like they were talking about the Edo period, which was from 1603 to 1868."

• 44:26Tracy V. Wilson?

  And then there's the link to the actual paper. "Thank you for all the work that you do. I recently started my master's degree while working full-time, and it's given me deeper appreciation for all the research you do on each topic. It's hard balancing work and research, so I completely empathize with writing something, taking a break, then completely forgetting that you wrote that down. Attached are my three cats, Frye, Black Cat, Dr. Pants, Tuxie, and my forever kitten Tina, my gray baby girl." Yes, they all have TV character names. Dr. Pants might be a deep cut for some listeners, but it's a home movies reference, specifically the episode.

• 45:02Holly Frey?

  I think it's, "My name is Mr. Pants. I'm the kitty cat man."

• 45:06Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 45:06Holly Frey?

  Oh, I know Mr. Pants.

• 45:08Tracy V. Wilson?

  This is not going to be a deep cut for Holly in any way at all.

• 45:12Holly Frey?

  It's really Dwayne, but we all know, this is for me and Rosemary alone.

• 45:17Tracy V. Wilson?

  Holly and Rosemary can share a moment about home movies, specifically the episode history.

• 45:23Holly Frey?

  The best show maybe of all time.

• 45:25Tracy V. Wilson?

  Rosemary also sent some episode suggestions. I was going to send a note back to Rosemary, because some of these are either not exactly ones that we've done, but ones that we talk about a lot in things that we've already done. But I haven't sent that reply. Maybe I will before this episode comes out. And then, of course, we have the alluded to adorable pet pictures. Oh, we have a black cat doing a little pink tongue bloop.

• 45:51Holly Frey?

  Adorbs.

• 45:52Tracy V. Wilson?

  Which is always my favorite. This is one of those things where these have opened gigantic, and so I'm having to scroll around to see the faces of the kitty cats. Oh, also cute, all of them, the cutest. Thank you so much for these pictures, Rosemary, and for the paper. I do have access to lots of ways to get papers, but in Unearthed episodes specifically, often it is just not feasible to use those resources for every single one of them, because there are, I usually have between 400 and 500 bookmarked links when I start working on Unearthed. Not that many things make it into the episodes, but that's how many things I'm going through.

• 46:35Tracy V. Wilson?

  So thank you again, Rosemary, for that. If you would like to send us a note, we're at [email protected]. And if you would like to see the show notes for all the resources that we used for this episode, which in this case, for today's episode includes two different biographies that are both in the public domain, you can look at that at our website, which is missedinhistory.com. You can also subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app and anywhere else you'd like to get podcasts.

• 47:14Tracy V. Wilson?

  Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 47:28Holly Frey?

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 47:59Tracy V. Wilson?

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• 49:22Tracy V. Wilson?

  Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979, or visit zepbound.lily.com. You ever show up late to the game and your friends already saved your seat, your drink, even a plate? That's looking out. That's having your back. And that's exactly what AT&T does with the AT&T Guarantee. They know staying connected matters, so they actually guarantee a network that comes through when it counts. AT&T has connectivity you can depend on, or they'll proactively make it right, just like that friend who takes care of things before you even ask. AT&T: Connecting Changes Everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.com/guarantee for details.

• 50:02Tracy V. Wilson?

  Deanna Flores is a flag football star, a trailblazer, an entrepreneur, and now host of a new podcast.

• 50:08Holly Frey?

  In Born to Become with Deanna Flores, she's sitting down with people from every corner of culture to find the whole person behind the public identity.

• 50:17Tracy V. Wilson?

  Every episode, you'll get to know Deanna, her guests, and even yourself a little better. No lectures, no know-it-all hosts, just real people being real.

• 50:25Holly Frey?

  Listen to Born to Become with Deanna Flores, out now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Created in partnership with Geico.

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• 50:57Speaker 06

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