Royale Affairs and Queen Claude of France

While reading Royal Affairs by Leslie Carrol, which I LOVE so far by the way, I have found a small error regarding Queen Claude.  Leslie Carrol writes:

“Mary Boleyn remained at the French court, where she became a lady in waiting to the new queen, Claude, the wife of Louis’s son François”

Claude was indeed the wife of François, but François was not the son of Louis XII, in fact Claude was Louis’s daughter.  While French law prohibited the crown be handed down to a woman, and poor king Louis with no surviving sons, Claude was married to her cousin and her fathers heir-presumptive, François, Duke of Angoulême.  But this wasn’t Claude’s first marriage arrangement.   Her mother, Anne of Brittany, wanted her daughter to be married to Charles V the future Holy Roman Emperor.   This marriage would mean Claude would take the duchy of Brittany and Burgundy from the French Crown.

The French nobles wanted no part of this deal and argued against Claude’s marriage to Charles, the loss of Brittany and Burgundy would have greatly reduced the size of France.  So the marriage promise was called off and Claude was arranged to marry François, whom she was married to at the age of 15 on May 18th, 1514.

While this little snippet of text is an error, do not let it discourage you from reading Leslie Carroll’s book, it is fantastic!