Her son inherited her kingdom, but as he was constantly leading the Huguenot forces, he entrusted the government of Béarn to his sister, Catherine, who held the regency for more than two decades.

Jeanne was born in the royal palace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France,[3] at five o'clock in the afternoon on 16 November 1528,[3] the daughter of Henry II, King of Navarre, by his wife Marguerite of Angoulême.

[5] Since the age of two, as was the will of her uncle King Francis who took over her education, Jeanne was raised in the Château de Plessis-lèz-Tours in the Loire Valley (Touraine), thus living apart from her parents.

[8] On 13 June 1541, when Jeanne was 12, Francis I, for political reasons, forced her to marry William "the Rich", Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg,[9] who was the brother of Anne of Cleves, the fourth wife of Henry VIII of England.

[7] A description of Jeanne's appearance at her wedding revealed that she was sumptuously attired, wearing a golden crown, a silver and gold skirt encrusted with precious stones, and a crimson satin cloak richly trimmed with ermine.

After the death of Francis in 1547 and the accession of Henry II to the French throne, Jeanne married Antoine de Bourbon, "first prince of the blood", at Moulins in the Bourbonnais on 20 October 1548.

It was inscribed in Latin with the following words: Antonius et Johanna Dei gratia reges Navarrae Domini Bearni (Antoine and Jeanne, by the grace of God, monarchs of Navarre and lords of Béarn).

[13] Antoine's frequent absences left Jeanne in Béarn to rule alone, and in complete charge of a household which she managed with a firm and resolute hand.

[18] In 1561, Catherine de' Medici, in her role as regent for her son King Charles IX, appointed Antoine Lieutenant General of France.

Catherine de' Medici, in an attempt to steer a middle course between the two warring factions, also pleaded with Jeanne to obey her husband for the sake of peace but to no avail.

When Jeanne had stopped for a brief sojourn at her husband's ancestral chateau in Vendôme on 14 May to break her lengthy homeward journey, she failed to prevent a 400-strong Huguenot force from invading the town.

The troop marauded through the streets of Vendôme, robbed and sacked all the churches, abused the inhabitants, and pillaged the ducal chapel, which housed the tombs of Antoine's ancestors.

[19] She resumed her journey after leaving Vendôme and managed to elude her captors, safely passing over the frontier into Béarn before she could be intercepted by the seigneur de Montluc and his troops.

At the end of the year, Antoine was fatally wounded at the siege of Rouen and died before Jeanne could obtain the necessary permission to cross over enemy lines, in order to be at his bedside where she had wished to nurse him.

[20] Jeanne refused an offer of matrimony issued by Philip II of Spain who had hoped to marry her to his son, on the condition that she return to the Catholic faith.

Jeanne's position in the conflicts remained relatively neutral in the beginning, being mainly preoccupied with military defences, given Navarre's geographic location beside Catholic Spain.

At one stage there was a plot led by Pope Pius IV to have her kidnapped and turned over to the Spanish Inquisition, where she would be imprisoned in Madrid, and the rulers of France and Spain invited to annex Navarre to their crowns.

Jeanne was summoned to Rome to be examined for heresy under the triple penalty of excommunication, the confiscation of her property, and a declaration that her kingdom was available to any ruler who wished to invade it.

[21] This last threat alarmed King Philip, and the blatant interference by the Papacy in French affairs also enraged Catherine de' Medici who, on behalf of Charles IX, sent angry letters of protest to the Pope.

During the French court's royal progress between January 1564 and May 1565, Jeanne met and held talks with Catherine de' Medici at Mâcon and Nérac.

Feeling that their lives were in danger from approaching French Catholic and Spanish troops, Jeanne and Henry sought refuge in the Protestant stronghold of La Rochelle.

She used her own jewellery as security in a loan obtained from Elizabeth I of England, and oversaw the well-being of the numerous refugees who sought shelter within La Rochelle.

That same year, as part of the conditions set out in the peace treaty, a marriage of convenience Jeanne reluctantly agreed to was arranged between her son and King Charles IX's sister, Marguerite.

Jeanne also complained to her son the Queen Mother mistreated and mocked her as they negotiated terms of the settlement, writing on 8 March, "she treats me so shamefully that you might say that the patience I manage to maintain surpasses that of Griselda herself".

[28] This fanciful chain of events also appears in the Romantic writer Alexandre Dumas's 1845 novel La Reine Margot, as well as Christopher Marlowe's play The Massacre at Paris and Michel Zevaco's 1907 novel L’Épopée d’Amour (in the Pardaillan series).