Anne of Austria

Queen of France (r. 1615-1643), queen regent (r. 1643-1651)

• Born: September 22, 1601
• Birthplace: Valladolid, Spain
• Died: January 20, 1666
• Place of death: Paris, France

As an outsider faced with a difficult marital relationship and caught in the maelstrom of a complex political situation at the court of France, Queen Anne of Austria overcame challenges and survived serious crises to become queen regent of France for her eldest son, King Louis XIV, securing his throne.

Early Life

Anne of Austria was the eldest daughter of King Philip III of Spain and his wife, Margaret of Austria . Her upbringing in the devoutly Catholic environment of her parents’ court and her attachment for her native land of Spain would remain with her throughout her life.

On November 24, 1615, she married King Louis XIII of France. This marked a significant change in the foreign policy of both France and Spain. Rivalry between the two superpowers had been, for more than a century, intense, and open warfare had almost broken out only five years before. The bride and groom were only fourteen years of age, and the years of Louis XIII’s minority, when France was governed by the king’s mother, Marie de Médicis , and her various court favorites were unsettled years of political turbulence and economic breakdown. As a Spaniard, Anne was viewed with suspicion, generally isolated, and her husband was, for a long time, very cool and reserved in his relationship with his wife. The cause and extent of this antipathy, especially on the king’s part, is a widely debated topic; some scholars have even described it as, at times, beyond bordering on hatred.

Life’s Work

Anne’s position was made all the more difficult with the rise to power of Cardinal de Richelieu . As France’s first minister, Richelieu would retain power only if he could maintain his hold over the king, and he was wary of the queen’s potential to subvert his influence. The cardinal therefore paid spies to keep a close watch on Anne, her acquaintances, and her correspondence to forestall any such threats. Thus, it was to his advantage to maintain the rift between the royal couple. The tense atmosphere was further aggravated by the injudicious decision on Anne’s part (though perhaps an understandable one in view of her isolation at court) to cultivate the friendship of Marie de Rohan, duchesse de Chevreuse, an intriguer and implacable adversary of Richelieu.

A scandal sprang up around Queen Anne’s alleged dalliance with the English envoy George Villiers, duke of Buckingham. While it does not seem to have been a full-blown affair, Buckingham embarrassed the queen by visiting her at inopportune times and on one occasion publicly falling to his knees to declare his devotion to her.

In 1630, a complex plot by Anne, de Chevreuse, and Queen Mother Marie de Médicis came close to toppling Richelieu from power, before the wily prelate turned the tables on his detractors and regained royal favor (this incident was dubbed the Day of Dupes ).

In 1637, the queen, through the agency of de Chevreuse, communicated with her brother, King Philip IV of Spain, although the two countries were at war and such interchanges were forbidden. Richelieu’s spies amassed proof of treason against Anne, and the cardinal was thus able to blackmail her into cooperation and also noninterference in any of his future policies. In return for an amnesty from her husband, secured by the cardinal’s efforts, she also was forbidden to associate further with de Chevreuse.

Anne’s fortunes turned somewhat later that year when a cloudburst caused her husband to seek shelter and spend the night with her in her apartments at Saint-Maur in Paris, and by the month of March of 1638, it was common knowledge that the queen was pregnant. On September 5, 1638, at St. Germain-en-Laye, the queen gave birth to her first child, a son, who was christened Louis. So long had the marriage been without issue that the birth of the child was considered a quasi-miracle and the baby was dubbed Dieudonne (God-given). On September 20, 1640, Anne’s second child, Philippe, duke of Anjou, was born, further assuring the succession and considerably strengthening the queen’s political position. Her nemesis, Richelieu, died on December 4, 1642.

On May 14, 1643, Louis XIII died, and the king’s will, which would have excluded the queen from all powers of regency over her four-year-old son, now Louis XIV , was turned aside by the Parlement of Paris and Anne was named coregent alongside Cardinal Jules Mazarin . Richelieu’s protégé, Mazarin was now first minister and, unlike his mentor, he was quite close to the queen. They worked so closely in tandem that there was persistent talk that they were secretly married. This remains unproven, but because Mazarin had never received ordination as a priest, this would have been technically feasible.

During the dangerous years of the Wars of the Fronde (1648-1653), which saw armed nobles rise against royal power and absolutism, Anne showed a stubborn courage that astounded her contemporaries. She was highly protective of her sons, and she managed, through a combination of diplomacy and brazen defiance, to save Mazarin from the Frondist rebels and engineer his return to power. At one stage she spirited the ten-year-old king and his brother out of Paris under the mob’s very nose. She undoubtedly played a significant role in preserving the throne for Louis XIV and bringing about the eventual defeat of the Frondists.

Anne and Mazarin favored a Spanish marriage for her elder son: The queen’s choice was her niece, Marie-Thérèse, eldest daughter of her brother King Philip IV. Accordingly, Louis was compelled to be betrothed to Marie-Thérèse and thus to terminate his courtship of the cardinal’s niece, Marie Mancini (the young lady and her sisters were soon sent out of France). The marriage between King Louis XIV and Marie-Thérèse took place in 1660.

Cardinal Mazarin died in 1661, and Louis XIV emphatically assumed personal rule, asserting that there would be no succeeding first minister. Louis’s mother was also excluded from any further political role, and though he continued to show her all outward filial respect, there is reason to believe that his resentment over her part in bringing about the Spanish marriage and Marie Mancini’s banishment tinged his attitude toward her. The Queen Mother was at the center of one final controversy when she publicly condemned Molière’s play Tartuffe: Ou, L’Imposteur (pr. 1664, pb. 1669; Tartuffe , 1732) about a religious hypocrite. So effective was she in her objections that King Louis banned further presentations of the play until more than one year after his mother’s death. Anne herself retired to the convent of Val de Grace in Paris and died there of breast cancer on January 20, 1666.

Significance

Anne of Austria is sometimes considered a passive and ineffective figure, who proved no match for the intricate political and diplomatic maneuverings of Richelieu, and who later played whatever role assigned her by Mazarin at a given time. However, she showed resolve and courage during the Wars of the Fronde and without doubt instilled in her son her devout Catholic faith, which he was to turn to so ardently in his later years—sometimes to the point of persecuting Huguenots (Protestants) and suppressing Jansenism within his domains.

Bibliography

Buranelli, Vincent. Louis XIV. New York: Twayne, 1966. The author tends to take the view that Anne had a greater influence upon the politics of the time, even after her “fall” from public life, than many have hitherto credited her with.

Cronin, Vincent. Louis XIV. London: Harvill Press, 1996. The first chapters give a decent, though far from extensive, treatment of Anne’s role during her son’s minority, including her time as regent of France.

Lewis, W. H. The Splendid Century: Life in the France of Louis XIV. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1997. A revealing look, originally published in 1953, at the domineering role assumed by Anne and Mazarin during Louis XIV’s minority, especially regarding the king’s amorous interests and eventual marriage to Marie-Thérèse.

Moote, A. L. The Revolt of the Judges: The Parlement of Paris and the Fronde, 1643-1652. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1972. Great historical detail concerning the Fronde, or the uprising of the nobility against the monarch, and the political intrigue surrounding the court.

O’Connell, D. P. Richelieu. Cleveland, Ohio: World, 1968. Though Anne is not portrayed unsympathetically, she is referred to—as an antagonist of the cardinal and minister—in terms of being a negative factor in the overall scheme of French history during the 1620’s and 1630’s.

Pitts, Vincent. La Grande Mademoiselle at the Court of France: 1627-1693. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. A page-turning melodrama of court intrigue as well as a major source on the period’s political and social events.