Anne of Austria
Anne of Austria was born on September 22, 1601. See ranking, bio blurb, and everyone else born that day.
About Anne of Austria
Anne of Austria (French: Anne d'Autriche; Spanish: Ana de Austria; born Ana María Mauricia; 22 September 1601 – 20 January 1666) was Queen of France from 1615 to 1643 by marriage to King Louis XIII. She was also Queen of Navarre until the kingdom's annexation into the French crown in 1620. After her husband's death, Anne was regent to her son Louis XIV during his minority until 1651. Anne was born in Valladolid to King Philip III of Spain and Margaret of Austria. She was betrothed to King Louis XIII of France in 1612 and they married three years later. The two had a difficult marital relationship, exacerbated by her miscarriages and the anti-Habsburg stance of Louis' first minister, Cardinal Richelieu. Despite a climate of distrust amidst the Franco-Spanish War and twenty-three years of childlessness in which she suffered five miscarriages, Anne gave birth to an heir, Louis, in 1638 and a second son, Philippe two years later. When Louis XIII died in 1643, Anne outmaneuvered her opponents to become sole regent to her four-year-old son, Louis XIV, and appointed Cardinal Mazarin as chief minister. The Fronde, a major revolt by the French nobility against Anne and Mazarin's government, broke out but was ultimately suppressed. In 1651, Anne's regency formally ended when Louis was declared of age. Accounts of French court life of her era emphasize her closeness to her son, and her disapproval of his infidelity to her niece and daughter-in-law Maria Theresa. She retired from active politics in 1661 and moved to the convent she had commissioned, Val-de-Grâce, where she died of breast cancer five years later.