List of French Consorts

List Of French Consorts

This is a list of the women who have been queens consort or empresses consort of the French monarchy. As all monarchs of France have been required by law to be male, there has never been a queen or empress regnant of France (although some women have governed France as regents).

Since 987 there have been 53 French consorts: 49 queens, and three empresses. Ingeborg of Denmark and Anne of Brittany were each queen more than once. Marie Josephine Louise of Savoy was queen de jure during the Republican and Imperial periods, but never wife of the de facto head of the French state.

From 1285–1328, the crowns of Navarre and France were united by virtue of the marriage of Joan I, Queen regnant of Navarre, to Philip IV, King of France, and by the succession of their three sons, Louis X, Philip V, and Charles IV. Thus, the wives of these three kings were queens consort not only of France but of Navarre. With the death of Charles IV, however, Navarre passed out of the hands of the French Kings until 1589, when Henry III of Navarre became Henry IV of France.

Upon Henry's succession, his wife, Margaret of France, who was already queen consort of Navarre, also became queen consort of France. Thereafter, until 1791, queens of France were also queens of Navarre; the crown of Navarre merged with the French crown in 1620 but the French kings continued to use the title of King of Navarre until 1791. The title "King of Navarre" was reassumed with the Restoration of 1814–15, and dropped with the Revolution of 1830; the Bonaparte and Orléans consorts did not use it.