Anne de La Tour d'Auvergne

For other people named Anne de la Tour d'Auvergne, see Anne de la Tour d'Auvergne (disambiguation).

Anne de La Tour d'Auvergne (1496–1524) was sovereign Countess of Auvergne from 1501 until 1524, and Duchess of Albany by marriage to John Stewart, Duke of Albany. In her marriage contract, she was called 'Anne de Boulogne fille de Jehan Comte de Boulogne et Auvergne.'^[1]

Anne de la Tour d'Auvergne
Countess of Auvergne
A contemporary portrait of Anne de la Tour d'Auvergne
Born	1496
Died	1524 (aged 28)
Noble family	La Tour d'Auvergne
Spouse(s)	John Stewart, Duke of Albany
Father	John III, Count of Auvergne
Mother	Jeanne de Bourbon-Vendôme

Family

She was the elder of two daughters born to Jean III of la Tour d'Auvergne and Jeanne of Bourbon.^[2] Her younger sister was Madeleine de La Tour d'Auvergne, who would marry Lorenzo II de' Medici and become the mother of Catherine de' Medici. As the elder daughter, Anne was her father's heiress.

Marriage

On 13 July 1505, she married her first cousin John Stewart, Duke of Albany, the intermittent heir presumptive to the Kingdom of Scotland and its sometime-regent, who lived in France as a sort of exile.^[3]

Death and inheritance

Anne died in 1524 at her castle of Saint-Saturnin,^[4] leaving her inheritance (the feudal county of Auvergne) to her niece, Catherine de' Medici (born 1519), daughter of her late younger sister Madeleine and Lorenzo II, Duke of Urbino.

A manuscript detailing Anne's inheritance, with pictures of her castles in Auvergne, and her descent from the legendary Belle Moree, daughter of a Pharaoh, survives in the Royal Library of the Hague.^[5] The Bibliothèque nationale de France has another manuscript version of this fabulous genealogy, and a similar inventory of Auvergne castles made for Catherine de' Medici.^[6] Anne and the Duke of Albany were painted in a stained-glass window at Vic-le-Comte.^[7]

Ancestry

Ancestors of Anne de La Tour d'Auvergne

8. Bertrand V, Count of Auvergne 4. Bertrand VI, Count of Auvergne 9. Jacquette du Peschin 2. John IV, Count of Auvergne 10. Georges de La Trémoille 5. Louise de La Trémoille 11. Catherine de L'Isle-Bouchard 1. Anne de La Tour, Countess of Auvergne 12. Louis, Count of Vendôme 6. John VIII, Count of Vendôme 13. Jeanne de Laval 3. Jeanne of Bourbon 14. Louis, Lord of Beauvau 7. Isabelle de Beauvau 15. Marguerite de Chambley

References

1. Stuart, Marie W., The Scot who was a Frenchman, the Life of John Stewart, Duke of Albany, William Hodge (1940), 295.
2. Bleeke 2017, p. 75.
3. Stuart, Marie W., The Scot who was a Frenchman, the Life of John Stewart Duke of Albany, William Hodge (1940), 22.
4. Stuart, Marie W., The Scot who was a Frenchman, the Life of John Stewart, Duke of Albany, William Hodge (1940), 172.
5. Manuscript c1505 with pictures of Auvergne castles belonging to Anne de la tour Princesse d'Ecossse. (Hague, KB, 74 G 11)
6. Généalogie fabuleuse d'Anne de La Tour, BNF Fr. 20209
7. Stuart, Marie W., The Scot who was a Frenchman, (1940), 293: Luneau, Jean-François, Revue de l'Art, vol. 107, (1995), 17-26, "Les Vitraux de la Sainte-Chapelle de Vic-le-Comte".

Sources

• Bleeke, Marian (2017). Motherhood and Meaning in Medieval Sculpture: Representations from France, C.1100-1500. The Boydell Press.
• Coombs, B., 'The Artistic Patronage of John Stuart, Duke of Albany, 1518-19: The 'Discovery' of the Artist and Author, Bremond Domat', The Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 144 (2014).
• Coombs, B., 'The Artistic Patronage of John Stuart, Duke of Albany, 1520-1530: Vic-le-Comte, the Last Sainte-Chapelle', Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 147 (2017).

Preceded by John III

Countess of Auvergne 1501–1524

Succeeded by Catherine