| Anne of Austria | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Portrait by Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1620s | |||||
| Queen consort of France | |||||
| Tenure | 24 November 1615 – 14 May 1643 | ||||
| Queen consort of Navarre | |||||
| Tenure | 24 November 1615 – 20 October 1620 | ||||
| Queen regent of France | |||||
| Regency | 14 May 1643 – 7 September 1651 | ||||
| Monarch | Louis XIV | ||||
| Born | 22 September 1601 Benavente Palace, Valladolid, Crown of Castile | ||||
| Died | 20 January 1666 (aged 64) Paris, Kingdom of France | ||||
| Burial | Basilica of St Denis, Paris, France | ||||
| Spouse | |||||
| Issue | |||||
| |||||
| House | Habsburg | ||||
| Father | Philip III of Spain | ||||
| Mother | Margaret of Austria | ||||
| Signature |  | ||||
Anne of Austria (French: Anne d'Autriche; Spanish: Ana de Austria; born Ana María Mauricia; 22 September 1601 – 20 January 1666) was Queen of France from 1615 to 1643 by marriage to King Louis XIII. She was also Queen of Navarre until the kingdom's annexation into the French crown in 1620. After her husband's death, Anne was regent to her son Louis XIV during his minority until 1651.
Anne was born in Valladolid to King Philip III of Spain and Margaret of Austria. She was betrothed to King Louis XIII of France in 1612 and they married three years later. The two had a difficult marital relationship, exacerbated by her miscarriages and the anti-Habsburg stance of Louis' first minister, Cardinal Richelieu. Despite a climate of distrust amidst the Franco-Spanish War and twenty-three years of childlessness in which she suffered four miscarriages, Anne gave birth to an heir, Louis, in 1638 and a second son, Philippe two years later.
When Louis XIII died in 1643, Anne outmaneuvered her opponents to become sole regent to her four-year-old son, Louis XIV, and appointed Cardinal Mazarin as chief minister. The Fronde, a major revolt by the French nobility against Anne and Mazarin's government, broke out but was ultimately suppressed. In 1651, Anne's regency formally ended when Louis was declared of age. Accounts of French court life of her era emphasize her closeness to her son, and her disapproval of her son's infidelity to her niece and daughter-in-law Maria Theresa.[1] She retired from active politics in 1661 and moved to the convent she had commissioned, Val-de-Grâce, where she died of breast cancer five years later.
- ^ Ruth Kleinman, Anne of Austria: Queen of France (1985).