Jeanne D Albret, queen of Navarre, born in Pau, Jan. 7, 1528, died in Paris, June 9,1572. She was the only daughter of Henry II. of Navarre and Margaret of Angouleme, sister of Francis I. and wife of Antoine de Bourbon, with whom she succeeded on the death of her father to the sovereignty of Lower Navarre and Beam. She was equally celebrated for her beauty, her intelligence, and her strength of mind. When Pope Paul IV. invested Philip II. of Spain with the sovereignty of Navarre, she formally embraced Calvinism, toward which she had already shown a leaning, while her husband, a man of weak spirit and ignoble impulses, hastened to submit himself to the church, and accepted from Philip the lieutenant-generalship of the kingdom. He applied to the pope to annul his marriage, but died shortly afterward (1562); and Jeanne, despite the intrigues and menaces of Spain and Rome, retained her possessions. In 1567 she declared Calvinism the established religion of the kingdom. With her children Henry and Catharine, she joined Coligny at La Rochelle with a small band of Huguenots in 1569, and after the assassination of the prince of Conde was regarded as the only remaining support of the Protestants. She is extolled by D'Aubigne and other writers for her influence over the Huguenot soldiery.

She reluctantly consented to the marriage arranged by Catharine de' Medici and Charles IX. between her son Henry (afterward Henry IV.) and Margaret of Valois, but died before the realization of her misgivings. She wrote both prose and verse; and some of her sonnets were published by Du Bellay.