Eleanor of Navarre (Basque: Leonor and Spanish: Leonor) (2 February 1426 – 12 February 1479),[1] was a Navarrese princess and monarch. She served as the regent of Navarre from 1455 to 1479, during the absence of her father, and then briefly as the queen regnant of Navarre in 1479. She was crowned on 28 January 1479 in Tudela.[1]
Life
Coat of arms of Queen Eleanor
She was born in Olite, Navarre (now Spain), the third and youngest child of King John II of Aragon and Queen Blanche I of Navarre.[2] She was the younger sister of Blanche II of Navarre.[3] She was born 2 February 1426, and was acclaimed by the Cortes in Pamplona, 9 August 1427, as the legitimate heir of Charles of Viana (Charles "IV") and Blanche II of Navarre in succession to their mother. After their mother's death, however, their father occupied Navarre.
She married Gaston IV, Count of Foix, in 1441.[4] In 1442, Eleanor moved with her spouse to Bearn. In 1455, her father deposed her brother and her sister as heirs of Navarre and proclaimed Eleanor as the heir and the regent and general governor of Navarre. In her new capacities, she moved to Sangüesa. She continued as regent after the death of her brother in 1461. In 1462, she signed the Treaty of Olite, in which she recognized her father as the monarch of Navarre and accepted to have her sister Blanche imprisoned under her care.
In 1464, Blanche died in her care, suspected to have been poisoned. By the treaty, she was recognized by her father as the heir of Navarre and his regent (governor) in Navarre. In 1468, her father killed her advisor Nicolas de Etchabarri, and deposed her as governor. In 1471, however, her father recognized her as the governor of Navarre until his death. At her father's death in 1479, she gave her oath as the monarch of Navarre and died two weeks later at Tudela, Navarre, aged 53.
Eleanor of Foix (1457–1480); engaged firstly to Charles, duke de Guyenne (who died in 1472), and secondly to the Duke of Medinacelli, but died before the wedding.
Krochalis, Jeanne E. (1996). "1494: Hieronymous Munzer, Compostela, and the Codex Calixtinus". In Dunn, Maryjane; Davidson, Linda Kay (eds.). The Pilgrimage to Compostela in the Middle Ages. Routledge.
Ward, A.W.; Prothero, G.W.; Leathes, Stanley, eds. (1911). The Cambridge Modern History. Macmillan Company.
Woodacre, Elena (2013). The Queens Regnant of Navarre: Succession, Politics, and Partnership, 1274-1512. Palgrave Macmillan.
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