List of Navarrese monarchs

The Íñiguez dynasty are credited with founding the Navarrese kingdom (of Pamplona) in or around 824 when they are said to have risen against an attempt to extend Frankish (Carolingian) authority into the region.

The death of Alfonso led to a succession crisis in Aragón and the nobles of Navarre took advantage to reestablish an independent monarchy, crowning a grandnephew (through an illegitimate brother) of the assassinated Sancho IV.

The death of Sancho VII, the last of the Jiménez kings, led to the crown of Navarre being inherited by the son of his sister Blanche, Countess of Champagne, she having been regent during much of her brother's reign.

During their reign, Navarre was defeated by Ferdinand II of Aragon in 1512, resulting in the loss of all its territory south of the Pyrenees, including the royal capital of Pamplona.

Ferdinand, the son of John II and his second wife and thus the half-brother of Catherine's grandmother Eleanor, was then crowned King of Navarre, and that branch of the title descended through the Aragonese and Spanish monarchs.

Catherine and John III were left with Lower Navarre, that small fraction of the kingdom's former territory that is on the north side of the Pyrenees, which was united with other lands in France that were under their control.

In 1530, Charles V decided to renounce definitively any claim to Lower Navarre due to the impossibility of controlling it,[2][3] and because it was being effectively ruled by Henry II.

Catherine and John III were left with that small fraction of the kingdom's former territory that is on the north side of the Pyrenees, which was united with other lands in France that were under their control.