[May 25] Henry II, king of Navarre

Parents: Jean, lord of Albret, and Catherine, queen of Navarre

Date of Birth: 18 April 1503

House: Albret
Spouse: Marguerite, daughter of Charles, count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy

Predecessor: Catherine

Reign: 1517 – 1555

Summary: A tragedy occurred to the small Pyrenees kingdom of Navarre in 1512, just five years prior of Henry's coronation. Ferdinand II, king of Aragon, on false pretenses annexed half of Navarre. Ferdinand based his claim on the claim of his second wife, Germaine, who was a cousin to Queen Catherine, Henry's mother. When Ferdinand took the land, he stole the title as well, adding it as a sub-title to his own. Lower Navarre, the portion north of modern-day Spain, held out as a separate country still named Navarre. Yet its days of independence were numbered. Henry d'Albert was the second in his line to claim the title. His father, Jean, was a minor lord in southern France. When Catherine began negotiations to marry Henry, she chose a French princess for her son. This is the trigger that prompted Ferdinand's invasion, because the Aragonese king did not want France in his back yard. Henry did not marry a French princess and Catherine died in 1517, leaving the remaining portion of Navarre to her son.

Henry owed his country's survival to the good graces of King François I of France. Meanwhile, Charles (the future Holy Roman Emperor Charles V) continued his grandfather's claim to Navarre from Spain. Henry II, though, wanted all of his country back. It was the oldest surviving state in Hispania and it was his by right. In 1516 and 1518, conferences were held to try and convince the Pamplona estates to recognize Henry II as their king. In 1521, French and Navarrese forces invaded Upper Navarre but were defeated at the Battle of Noain. In 1525, Henry was taken prisoner at the Battle of Pavia but he escaped in 1526. Soon after, he married the sister of King François. She became the mother of the penultimate independent ruler of Navarre, Jeanne III. In his final years, Henry arranged the marriage of his daughter to Antoine de Bourbon, a potential heir to the French throne, thereby ensuring continued support from France. Henry had gained the sympathy of the Huguenots in southern France and died in their care at Hagetmau in 1555, never regaining any of his southern lands.

Date of Death: 25 May 1555

Successor: Jeanne III

Other Monarch Deaths:

Boniface IV, pope of Rome (615)

Murakami, emperor of Japan (967)

Mieszko I, duke of Poland (992)

Gregory VII, pope of Rome (1085)

Alexander IV, pope of Rome (1261)

Idris I, king of Libya (1983)