The Company Of Women - Marguerite Of Navarre

1492–1549

You might have noticed that the most powerful piece on a chessboard is the queen. That may reflect the reality of Europe in the 1500s. The Renaissance was changing culture, and the Reformation was changing worship. A few privileged families held power throughout the continent, and the women in these families formed an impressive coterie of world changers. In the middle of all this was Marguerite of Navarre, free thinker, writer, and queen.

Her father was a well-born nobleman, but it was her mother, Louise of Savoy, who taught Marguerite languages, philosophy, and theology. This education gave a breadth to the writing she loved to do, and it led to an open-minded attitude amid the new ideas swirling around the Reformation. While Marguerite remained a Catholic, throughout her life she welcomed Protestant teaching, seeking to change the church from within.

Marguerite’s brother became King Francis I of France, and she assisted him at court, impressing visitors with her wit and knowledge. She also participated in high-level peace negotiations. All the while, she was writing secular and sacred works of poetry and prose.

It was an era of savvy women. Catherine de Medici would soon become the power behind the French throne. Marguerite’s own daughter, Jeanne d’Albret, was a powerhouse of the French Protestant movement. It has also been suggested that Marguerite’s Protestant sympathies rubbed off on a young Anne Boleyn as a lady-in-waiting in the court of Francis. And Marguerite’s popular devotional book, The Mirror of the Sinful Soul, was translated into English by Anne Boleyn’s precocious eleven-year-old daughter, who would grow up to be Queen Elizabeth I.

“O my Savior, through faith I am . . . joined with Thee,” Marguerite wrote in that book. “O what union is this . . . now I may call Thee son, father, spouse, and brother. . . . O what gifts Thou dost give, by the goodness of those names. . . . Father full of humility. Brother, having taken our similitude. Son, engendered through faith, and charity. Husband, loving in all extremity.”

Despite the pressures and politics of that time, this queen understood that true power comes from our connection with the Savior.

May you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.

Ephesians 3:18