From Narratively:
The Pirate Queen Who Avenged Her Husband’s Death on the High Seas
After the King of France beheaded a nobleman on questionable charges, his devastated widow transformed into “the Lioness of Brittany” and spent the next decade exacting her revenge.
When Olivier IV de Clisson was convicted of betraying France by spying for England, his punishment was swift and severe: Off with his head. But the stern-faced King Philippe VI felt execution alone was not sufficient to get his message across. So he ordered Olivier’s decapitated head to be sent from Paris and placed atop a gate in Nantes, near the disgraced nobleman’s home.
The execution was the coda to a contentious episode during the War of the Breton Succession. When the heirless Duke of Brittany died in 1341, both the French and English had laid claim to his lands in northwestern France. Olivier, a wealthy Frenchman with pale white skin and long brown hair, was entrusted with protecting France’s honor and leading the army as a commander. But when the key city of Vannes fell into the hands of the English, Olivier was accused of not fighting valiantly enough for the French.
The two sides ultimately signed a peace treaty and Olivier traveled to Paris, believing the treaty would put these past allegations behind him. However, when he reached the capital, King Philippe had him arrested, thrown in prison and convicted of treason.
Sending a nobleman like Olivier to the guillotine was highly unorthodox. Some sources report that Olivier confessed, yet there is no way to confirm that he truly did, or that he did so in a clear state of mind, as he may have been tortured, and fair and ethical trials were hardly a common practice at the time.
King Philippe, for his part, surely hoped his gruesome order would dissuade any other would-be traitors in his midst.
He could not have been more wrong.
Around 20 miles from where Olivier’s head was placed, his widow, Jeanne, was seething. She and their children were holed up in her husband’s expansive castle, the Château de Clisson, overlooking the beautiful Sèvre Nantaise river. Eight centuries later, the question of whether Olivier truly betrayed France is not easily answered. But one thing is starkly clear: Jeanne, after learning of her beloved husband’s execution, had a new sworn enemy — the French king. And to say she was intent on exacting her revenge would be an understatement of historic proportions.
Jeanne de Clisson, also known as Jeanne de Belleville, attracted scandal long before the execution of her husband. She was born in 1300 to a noble family in the Gâtine Vendéenne area, south of Brittany in what is now western France. Her family was among the most powerful in the region. University of Massachusetts Lowell history professor Katrin E. Sjursen wrote in the anthology Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100–1400 that “Belleville lands were quite extensive, stretching across southern Brittany and the northern Poitou, virtually controlling access to the sea.”
Not much is known about Jeanne’s early years, but given that she was the daughter of a prominent nobleman, she was likely accustomed to some level of luxury. According to novels and some portraits, Jeanne had fair skin, a status symbol at the time, and brown or reddish-brown hair.
In 1312, at the young age of 12, she married her first husband, Geoffrey de Châteaubriant VIII, a nobleman. As if welcoming children at 14 and 16 years old was not challenging enough, Jeanne became a widow at the age of 26 when Geoffrey died. Unmarried women in 14th-century France, even those of noble standing, had close to no power. To ensure the safety and well-being of her young children, Jeanne would have to remarry....
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