Marie: Women in Power

Brief lives of women who reigned or ruled in their own right or by marriage by providing their a) personal and family background; b) proprietary titles; c) parents/pedigree; d) patrimony and properties; e) persona or personality; f) powers exercised, g) patronages and h) partner(s) and progeny.

Marie de Bearn (d.1187)

Viscountess of Bearn, 1170-1187

Marie de Bourbon (1315-1387)

Also known as:

Proprietary Titles: Sovereign Baroness of Vostitsa & Nivelet (by purchase), 1359-1370

Other Titles: Latin Empress of Constantinople as wife of Robert of Taranto

Parents/Pedigree: Louis I of Bourbon & Marie of Avesnes.

Partner(s):

1) Guy de Lusignan (1343), mar 1328, titular Prince of Galilee, 1 son

2) Robert of Taranto (d.1364), mar 1347, no children.

Progeny/Posterity:

Note: "Du Cange long ago remarked on the special affection and solicitude which Robert of Taranto demonstrated for Marie of Bourbon. The prince had given repeated proof of his sentiments by granting his consort large estates and by treating her son, Hugh of Galilee, as if he were his own. He had warmly espoused Hugh's claims to the throne of Cyprus. At the time of their marriage (September 1347) Robert had assigned to Marie for her dower an annual revenue of 2,000 gold ounces from his possessions in Italy and in Corfu and Cephalonia. In 1355 he granted her for her household an annual income of 1,050 ounces from his Italian lands. In 1357 he bestowed in her the rich castellany of Kalamata, with two dependent castles and the rights of high justice. About this time Marie purchased the two important baronies of Vostitsa and Nivelet. . . ." (A History of the Crusades: 137)

MARIE DE CHIMAY (1220-1241)

[Tree1]

Proprietary Titles: Lady of Chimay and of Thour

Parents/Pedigree: Roger I, Lord of Chimay, and of Agnes, Lady of Thour.

Partners/Progeny: Married (1) Jean I de Arcis-sur-Aube (d.1219); (2) in 1226 Jean II de Nesle (1224-1270/72). Count of Soissons and of Chartres, Lord of Nesle and of Falvy, with whom she had 2 sons and 3 daughters.

Marie d'Enghien (1367-1446), 

Proprietary Title: Countess of Lecce and Castro, 1384-1446, succeeding her brother Pierre d'Enghien.

Other Titles:

Parents/Pedigree: Jean d'Enghien (d.1380), Count of Castro, and of Sancia del Balzo.

Partner/Progeny:

1) Raimondo del Balzo Orsini di Nola (d.1405), mar 1384, Prince of Taranto, 2 dau/2 sons

2) King Ladislao of Naples, mar 1406, no children

MARIE DE LUXEMBOURG (1472-1546)

Proprietary Titles: Countess of Luxembourg, Countess of Marle, Countess of Soissons and Lady of Conde.

Parents/Pedigree: Elder daughter and heiress of Pierre II de Luxembourg (), Count of St. Pol, and of Margherita di Savoia (1439-1483).

Partners/Progeny: Married (1) Jacques de Savoie (), Count of Romont; (2) in 1487, Francois de Bourbon, Count of Vendome.

MARIE D'ORLEANS

Notes: "...Mary of Orleans, duchess of Nemours and Estouteville, having become possessed of Tancarville, sold it in September, 1706, to Anthony Crozat, the king's secretary...." (The Castle at Tancarville)

MARIE DE SULLY (d.1375)

[Fam1]

Proprietary Title: Lady of Sully

Parents/Pedigree: Henri IV (d.1334), Lord of Sully and Grand Butler of France, and of Jeanne de Vendome (d.1317) 

Partner/Progeny: Gottfried IV, Lord of Aspremont of of Dun, Lord of Conflans, of Dupouy and of Quievrain, with whom she had 2 sons and 1 daughter.

Note: "Marie de Sully (was) heiress to the important fief of Craon as well as to the strategic castle of Sully on the Loire...." (Pernoud, et. al., p. 190)

MARIE-FRANCOISE DE VALOIS (1631-1696)

Duchesse d'Angouleme, Comtesse de Lauragais, of Ponthieu and of Alais (by inheritance)

Duchesse de Joyeuse (by marriage)

a.k.a. Marie-Francoise d'Angouleme

Daughter of Louis-Emmanuel d'Angouleme and of Henriette de La Guiche.

Wife of Louis de Guise-Joyeuse, Duc de Joyeuse, mar 1649. They had two children: Louis-Joseph de Guise and Catherine-Henriette de Guise.

"Marie-Francoise de Valois, who married the duc de Joyeuse in 1649, was known to be a mental invalid from about the age of nine... Yet as heiress of three major dynastic fortunes---Angouleme, Montmorency and La Guiche---she was married to a younger brother of the duc de Guise, and produced two children, before becoming a widow at age 22.
Throughout her 42 years of widowhood, she was kept hidden from view, first by her mother at her chateau of Ecouen or the Hotel d'Angouleme in Paris, then by her daughter-in-law (Mme de Guise) at a convent in Normandy, while her vast inheritance, in the neighbourhood of two million livres, was kept in abeyance...."  (Spangler, 2009, p. 159)