Chateau de Blois- Louis XII Wing
The chateau de Blois is located in the Loir-et-cher departement in the picturesque Loire Valley in France and is positioned in the centre of the city of Blois.
Well known for being the place where Joan of Arc went in 1429 to be blessed by the Archbishop of Reims before departing with her army to force the English out of Orleans.
It has also been the residence of many French kings and queens over the centuries and was a favourite royal residence of King Louis XII.
In the beginning of the 16th century the king ordered a reconstruction of the main block and created a formal Italian garden. The red brick and grey stone wing form the main entrance to the chateau and features a statue of Louis XII mounted above the entrance.
On the 9th October 1514 an 18-year-old Mary Tudor married the 52-year-old King Louis XII.
King Louis XII by unknown artist
Shifting political alliances meant that Anne Boleyn was recalled from the court of Archduchess Margaret and placed as a lady in waiting to the new queen consort of France, Mary Tudor. Anne’s command of the French language and her familiarity with the culture would have been of great help to the new queen.
King Louis dismissed most of the Queen’s English maids but it is likely that Anne Boleyn joined her new mistress in Paris around the time of her coronation on November 5.
It seems that married life to such a young lady proved hazardous to King Louis and he died on 1 January 1515 after only a few months of marriage. His successor was 20-year-old Francis.
King Francis I by Jean Clouet c.1530
Mary Tudor then went on to secretly marry Charles Brandon who was sent to France by King Henry VIII to negotiate relations with the new monarch and to arrange Mary’s return.
After a few weeks, Wolsey secured the King’s forgiveness and gave permission for the pair to return to England. Anne Boleyn did not return to England with Suffolk and Mary in April 1515.
Anne entered the household of Francis I’s wife, the 15 –year-old Queen Claude and would stay with her for nearly seven years.
Queen Claude’s life involved almost annual successions of pregnancies spent largely at the Chateau of Blois and Amboise in the beautiful countryside of the Loire Valley. Anne’s duties kept her the majority of the time with Queen Claude therefore she would have known these palaces well.
Chateau Blois is an important stop on the Tudor Trail because it is where Anne’s education continued and where she grew into the woman that would change the history of England and Europe forever.
Click here for information on visiting the chateau.
Sources
http://www.francethisway.com/places/chateaudeblois.php
Ives, E. The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 2004.
Weir, Alison. The Six Wives of Henry VIII, 1991.
Wilkinson, Josephine. The Early Loves of Anne Boleyn. 2009.
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