Countess Charlotte Brabantina of Nassau
{{Expand German|topic=bio|Charlotte Brabantina von Oranien-Nassau|date=November 2012}}
{{Infobox noble
| name = Countess Charlotte Brabantina
| title = Duchess consort of Thouars
| image = 150px
| caption = Countess Charlotte Brabantina of Nassau
| birth_date = 17 September 1580
| birth_place = Antwerp
| death_date = August {{death year and age|1631|1580}}
| death_place = Château-Renard
| noble family = House of Orange-Nassau (by birth)
House of La Trémoille (by marriage)
| father = William the Silent
| mother = Charlotte of Bourbon
| spouse = Claude de La Trémoille
| issue = Henry de La Trémoille
Charlotte de La Trémoille
Élisabeth de La Trémoille
Frédéric de La Trémoille, comte de Laval
}}
Countess Charlotte Brabantina of Nassau (Antwerp, 17 September 1580 – Château-Renard, August 1631) was the fifth daughter of William the Silent and his third spouse, Charlotte of Bourbon.{{Cite web|url=https://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/CharlotteBrabantina|title=Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland|date=17 September 2019}} She lived in her life at the French royal court and performed many successful assignments as a mediator.
Life
She and her sisters lost their mother in 1582 and their father in 1584 and were taken care of by their stepmother Louise de Coligny, with whom they had a very good relationship.
In 1594 Louise introduced the elder sisters Elisabeth and Charlotte Brabantina at the court of Henry IV of France in order to find French Huguenot spouses for them. Elisabeth married the Duke of Bouillon in 1596 and Charlotte Brabantina married Claude de La Trémoille in 1598. She was described as a beauty and called La Belle Brabantine. She was widowed in 1604.
Charlotte Brabantina divided her life between the Thours castle, the French royal court and the Dutch court in The Hague, and was well liked by Henry IV, Marie de' Medici and Louis XIII. Being well liked by most and with good connections, she was often given assignments as a mediator. She acted as a mediator during the conflict between the Duke of Bouillon and Henry IV.Matty Klatter, Charlotte Brabantina van Oranje, in: Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland. URL: http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/CharlotteBrabantina [13/01/2014] She also acted as a mediator in the negotiations resulting in the Treaty of Loudun in 1616. Louis XIII appointed her to chair the synod between the French reformed churches in Vitry in May–June 1617.
She maintained a correspondence with her stepmother and her sisters, who were also often politically active, and they often referred to themselves as 'femmes d'état' or female "statesmen".
Ancestry
{{ahnentafel
|collapsed=yes |align=center
| boxstyle_1=background-color: #fcc;
| boxstyle_2=background-color: #fb9;
| boxstyle_3=background-color: #ffc;
| boxstyle_4=background-color: #bfc;
| boxstyle_5=background-color: #9fe;
| 1= 1. Charlotte Brabantina of Nassau
| 2= 2. William the Silent
| 3= 3. Charlotte of Bourbon
| 4= 4. William I, Count of Nassau-Siegen
| 5= 5. Juliana of Stolberg-Wernigerode
| 6= 6. Louis, Duke of Montpensier
| 7= 7. Jacqueline de Longwy
| 8= 8. John V, Count of Nassau-Siegen
| 9= 9. Elisabeth of Hesse-Marburg
| 10= 10. Bodo III, Count of Stolberg-Wernigerode
| 11= 11. Anna of Eppstein-Königstein
| 12= 12. Louis, Prince of La Roche-sur-Yon
| 13= 13. Louise de Bourbon, Duchess of Montpensier
| 14= 14. Jean de Longwy
| 15= 15. Jeanne of Angoulême
| 16= 16. John IV, Count of Nassau-Siegen
| 17= 17. Mary of Looz-Heinsberg
| 18= 18. Henry III, Landgrave of Hesse
| 19= 19. Anna of Katzenelnbogen
| 20= 20. Henry IX, Count of Stolberg
| 21= 21. Mathilde of Mansfeld
| 22= 22. Philip I of Eppstein
| 23= 23. Louise de La Marck
| 24= 24. John VIII, Count of Vendôme
| 25= 25. Isabelle de Beauvau
| 26= 26. Gilbert, Count of Montpensier
| 27= 27. Clara Gonzaga
| 28= 28. Philippe de Longvy, Lord of Givry
| 29= 29. Jeanne de Bauffremont
| 30= 30. Charles, Count of Angoulême
| 31= 31. Antoinette de Polignac
}}
References
{{reflist}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20110520173655/http://worldroots.com/brigitte/royal/bio/charlottenassaubio.html Charlotte Brabantina: biography on Worldroots]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Charlotte Brabantina Of Nassau}}
Category:House of Orange-Nassau
Category:House of La Trémoille