A Navarrese soldier
The Kingdom of Navarre (Basque: Nafarroa; Spanish: Navarra) was a Basque kingdom that occupied lands on either side of the western Pyrenees, along the Atlantic Coast between present-day Spain and France.
After the last native Basque dynasty ruling the kingdom died out in 1234, the Navarrese throne passed to various French noble families and sometimes the French and Spanish royal families. In the early 14th century, the Kingdom of Navarre was in a personal union with the Kingdom of France under King Philip (I of Navarre and IV of France), although the two kingdoms would separate again later in the century due to Navarrese succession laws permitting female monarchs and succession through the female line, while France's did not.
During the Renaissance, the kingdom was ruled jointly by Queen Catherine and her husband John III, both of whom belonged to French noble families from neighbouring Gascony. In 1507, John sent his brother-in-law Cesare Borgia to retake the Viana Castle from the Count of Lerin and the Castilians aiding him.[1] The siege would end in a Navarrese defeat, with the assassination of Cesare by Assassin Ezio Auditore.[2]
In 1512, having remarried to one of Queen Catherine's cousins after Isabella of Castille's death and claimed the Navarrese throne in her right, Ferdinand II of Aragon completed the conquest of the Spanish half of Navarre. After a failed counterattack on the traditional Navarrese capital Pamplona in October, the legitimate Navarrese royal family were forced to permanently relocate to their holdings in southern Gascony.
The rump Gascon Kingdom of Navarre was inherited by the House of Bourbon under King Henry III in 1572. He would also inherit the French throne as Henry IV in 1589, uniting the two thrones for the final time before Navarre's remnants were formally integrated into the Kingdom of France in 1620 under Henry's son Louis (II of Navarre and XIII of France).
Ferdinand II's successors would also claim the Kingdom of Navarre until the Spanish half of Navarre's territory and claim to Navarre itself was formally absorbed into the Kingdom of Spain in 1841.
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- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood – Database: Viana
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood – Pax Romana