Duke of Brittany

The Duke of Brittany (French: Duc de Bretagne) governed Brittany, a region with strong traditions of independence, including a language and a distinctive culture.

Duchy of Brittany

The incorporation of Brittany into the Carolingian empire ensured that the political and social institutions were similar to those prevailing elsewhere in western Francia. Until the 10th century, Brittany was severely affected by Viking attacks and ducal authority was weak. Dynastic disputes caused the political fragmentation of the duchy into counties and authority suffered even further from the pressures of resisting claims by both the dukes of Normandy and the counts of Anjou. This process of fragmentation was halted and reversed from the mid-eleventh century, when intermarriage resulted in the ducal title vesting in a single individual, Duke Alain IV Fergent.

Alain's long and stable reign included expansion of Breton holdings by King William I of England conferring upon him the honour of Richmond, after the Norman Conquest of England. His son Conan III also saw progress in the revival of central authority. A succession dispute following Conan's death undid the duke's achievements and allowed Henry II of England, to claim overlordship. Between 1158 and 1166, Henry II annexed Brittany to his continental holdings, marrying his third son, Geoffrey, to Constance, heiress of the duchy. The Angevin Empire in Brittany came to an end in 1203, after King John of England murdered his nephew, Arthur, the son of Geoffrey and Constance.

The marriage of the infant Alice to Capetian cadet Peter of Dreux in 1213, began the new House of Dreux. This allowed Brittany a measure of autonomy again, although continuously giving lip service to Capetian sovereignty. After the Breton War of Succession, Brittany still had links with the English Crown through the Earldom of Richmond, until the Wars of the Roses. A disoriented and shut out Brittany became royally subsumed into France, during a tapering reign of the Montfort house. In 1465 Duke Francis II took Penthievre from its Blois-descended countess, Nicole de Bretagne-Blois - thus undermining the Penthievre family's position in the country. In 1488, at the death of the last male duke Francis II, the head of the Penthievre family was Jean de Brosse (died 1502), grandson of Nicole de Blois the aforementioned, and he asserted their claimto the duchy, but Francis' daughter Anne however succeeded. Duchess Anne of Brittany was first attempted to get married to Habsburgs, in order to avoid French central government's yoke, but she found herself instead married in turn to two kings of France. Her daughter Claude, duchess from 1514, was married to king Francis, and was not able to keep any independent government. Claude's son Francis IV was invested as duke, but this meant next to nothing to Briton independence. Some members of the Brosse family were appointed as royal governors of Brittany by the French. When Francis IV's brother Henri ascended the French throne, the duchy became regarded as merged in the crown. The view enjoyed no undivided support, as many Britons would have liked higher autonomy and other European royal houses woulsd have liked to weaken France in its own borders. Thus, when Henry III of France, the last male-line descendant of Claude died in 1589, his theoretical heirs in Brittany and Auvergne were Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, the later Spanish ruler of Low Countries, and Henry I, Duke of Lorraine (the former was eldest daughter of the late eldest sister of Henry III but female, the latter was male but son of younger sister; Brittany had a unlogical tradition of giving some -but not all- precedence to male heirs even in cases he also descended through female). Philip II of Spain, leading enemy of France, offered either of them to divide as much of France between them as could be taken. Regarding Brittany, nothing come from this. Instead, Philippe Emmanuel, Duke of Mercoeur, a leader of Catholic League, whom king Henry III had in 1582 made royal governor of Brittany, declared independence in name of his own underage son Philippe Louis de Lorraine-Mercoeur who through maternal ancestry was the direct primogenitural heir of Duchess Joanna of Brittany, that of the Penthievre branch, wife of Charles the Lame of Blois. Mercoeur organized a government at Nantes, supported by the Spaniards. It took several years until in 1598 the Mercoeur government surrendered in 1598 to Henry IV of France who had one of his own bastards to marry the young daughter of the Mercoeurs, and confirmed the direct French control of the province.

Richmondshire, part of Brittany and latterly of Great Britain

Richmondshire was often held by Breton dukes themselves or their secundogeniture during the Middle Ages. There was also a rift in the political ambitions of Brittany and Richmondshire; Plantagenet Richmondshire under John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford supported English claims to the French throne, whilst Capet Brittany opposed this. During the Wars of the Roses, Richmond became partisan with the House of Lancaster under the Tudor earls, themselves supported by the Duke of Brittany. Parting between Nantes and Richmond was amicable (Arthur de Richemont) and unofficial for the span of a century (Henry FitzRoy quartered ermine in his arms), or more (Ludovic Stewart was originally a mere Earl, not Duke of Richmond).

Richmond became a dukedom in its own right; the Duchy of Brittany and Kingdom of Navarre were being united with France as the Principality of Wales and Kingdom of Scotland were uniting with England. The present holder of Richmond owes the honorific title Duke of Aubigny (after Aubigny-sur-Nère in Berry), in descent from Breton Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. This new relation was connected to the Auld Alliance, Breton roots in the House of Stuart, reactionary recusancy as found in Richmondshire and also Lennox near Glasgow. Catholic connections continued with the addition of Jacobite Clan Gordon's property in the Scottish Highlands to this circle and the present Duke of Richmond is also Duke of Gordon.

Kings and Dukes of Brittany

Kings of the Bretons

Nominoe (or Nevenoe) (r.841–851), as a missus dominicus of the Emperor Louis the Pious, a count of Vannes (Gwened) and a duke (dux) of Brittany
Erispoe (r.851–857), as a duke, then a king of Brittany
Salomon (or Salaun) (r.857–874), as a duke, then a king of Brittany
Pasquitan of Vannes (or Paskweten) (r.874–877), ruling Brittany with Gurvand
Gurvand of Rennes (r.874–877), ruling Brittany with Pasquitan
Judicael of Rennes (r.877–888), successor of Gurvand, ruled Brittany with Alan the Great
Alan the Great (reigned from 877 to 888 with Judicaël, alone as a duke, then as a king up to 907)

The succession was interrupted by the Norman occupation (907–937)

House of Nantes/Naoned

Alan II Wrybeard (reigned as a duke from 937 to 952)
Drogo, son (reigned from 952 to 958)
Hoel I, brother (reigned from 960–981 as a duke, but controlled only the county of Nantes/Naoned)
Guerech, brother (reigned from 981–988 as a duke, but controlled only the county of Nantes/Naoned)

House of Rennes/Roazhon

Conan I of Rennes (r.958–992) earl of Rennes/Roazhon, then ruling all Brittany (if not Nantes/Naoned) as a duke (990–992)
Geoffrey I (r.992–1008)
Alan III (r.1008–1040)
Conan II (r.1040–1066)

House of Cornouaille/Kernev

Hoel II of Cornouaille/Hoel Huuel (r.1066–1084), married Hawisa, daughter of Alan III
Alan IV Fergant (r.1084–1112)
Conan III the Fat (r.1112–1148)
Eon I of Porhoet (r.1148–1156), married Bertha, daughter of Conan III
Conan IV the Younger, son of Bertha and Alan of Richmond. (r.1156–1168), deposed, †1171

House of Anjou

Geoffrey Plantagenet (r.1166–1186), married Constance, daughter of Conan IV
Constance, daughter of Conan IV, (r.1186–1201)
Arthur I Plantagenet (r.1196–1203)
Guy of Thouars (r.1203–1206)
Alix of Thouars, daughter of Constance and Guy of Thouars, (r.1206–1221)

House of Dreux

Peter I Mauclerc of Dreux (r.1213–1237) in right of his wife Alix and as regent of his son
John I, the Red (r.1237–1286)
John II (r.1286–1305)
Arthur II (r.1305–1316)
John III, the Good (r.1312–1341)

Breton War of Succession (1341–1364)

Charles of Blois and Joanna of Penthièvre (r.1341–1364)
- vs. Dukes John IV and John V, see below

House of Montfort

The cadet branch of the House of Dreux

John of Montfort (r.1341–1345) in rivalry to the aforementioned
John IV, the Conqueror (r.1364–1399) until 1365 in rivalry to the aforementioned
John V (r.1399–1442)
Francis I (r.1442–1450)
Peter II (r.1450–1457)
Arthur III (r.1457–1458)
Francis II (r.1458–1488)
Anne of Brittany (r.1488–1514)
Claudia of France (r.1514–1524)
François, Dauphin of France (r.1524–1536), son of Francis I of France and Claudia of France
Henry II of France was from 1536 Duke of Brittany, and when he succeeded in the royal throne 1547, Brittany was officially united to France

1589-98 and its aftermaths

Philip, Duke of Brittany i.e Philippe de Lorraine-Mercoeur, born 1589, died in 1590, proclaimed "Prince and Duke of Brittany" in Nantes (reigned 1589-90 under regency of his father Philippe Emmanuel, duc de Mercoeur)
Marie de Luxembourg, Duchess of Penthievre (1562-1623), and her husband Philippe-Emmanuel de Lorraine, Duke of Mercoeur (1558-1602), the rebel governor (reigned 1589-98)
- rival: Francoise de Lorraine-Mercoeur (1592-1669) and her husband Cesar de Bourbon, duc de Vendome (1594-1665), candidates of King Henry IV

Claimants

When the Montfortine Duke Francis II died in 1488, heirs of the Penthievre family asserted their claim - at that time, Penthievre and their rights had already been inherited by a female-line descent, the family of Brosse, whose heads were:

titular duke John VII (Jean de Brosse, died 1502), son of Jean V de Brosse and grandson of Nicole de Blois-Bretagne-Penthievre
titular duke Rene I (René de Brosse, died 1524), son of previous
titular duke John VIII (Jean de Brosse, duc d'Etampes et de Chevreuse, died 1566), son of René, sometime royal governor of Brittany
Sebastien de Luxembourg, nephew of previous
Marie de Luxembourg (daughter of previous) and her husband Philippe-Emmanuel, duc de Mercoeur - they succeeded in having their rule recognized at least in Nantes and surroundings in 1589 onwards up to 1598

The claims to the Duchy of Brittany after 1598 evolved:

the senior claim, that of Joan of Penthievre and of the Mercoeur, went through Bourbon-Vendome (the illegitimate branch started by Cesar, bastard of Henry IV, and his Briton wife) to Marie-Jeanne de Savoie-Nemours, the mother of Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia and after her death in 1724, the Savoy kings of Sardinia, until Victor Emmanuel I was inherited by Dukes of Modena, and them subsequently inherited by Dukes of Bavaria, whose heir now is Franz, Duke of Bavaria
the junior or Montfort claim and of Isabella Clara Eugenia (who died in 1633), went to her nephew the duke of Savoy, whose descendant Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia inherited it from his father in 1675. Since Victor Amadeus subsequently in 1724 succeeded in his mother's rights too, the succession thus continued as explained above together with the senior claim all way down to Franz, Duke of Bavaria.

External link

Genealogy of the Dukes of Brittany

History of Brittany | Dukes of Brittany | French noble titles

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