John III of Navarre - King of Navarre

King of Navarre

He became King of Navarre and Count of Foix by virtue of his 1484 marriage to Queen Catherine (1470–1517), successor of her brother Francis Phoebus in 1483.

In 1512, John III was defeated by Ferdinand II of Aragon, whose second wife was Germaine de Foix (1490–1538), a cousin of Queen Catherine. Navarre south of the Pyrenees was annexed by the victorious Ferdinand and remained a domain of the Kings of Spain, who also bore the title of Kings of Navarre, until the 1833 territorial division of Spain, when it was completely integrated into Spain.

Lower Navarre remained with John and his successors as Kings of Navarre, increasingly under French influence. After King Henry III of Navarre had mounted the French throne in 1589, he and his successors styled themselves Kings of France and Navarre until the French Revolution merged Lower Navarre with France.