ABSTRACT
Blanche of Navarre (1179–1229), countess of Champagne, spent her long regency (1201–22) defending the inheritance of her son Thibaut (IV), born six days after the death of his father, Count Thibaut III (1198–1201). She skilfully manoeuvred between an exigent king, Philip II, and a faction of barons who claimed that the county should have passed not to the count’s posthumous son but to the daughters of his older brother, Count Henry II (1187–97). Despite the threat of civil war that hung over her entire regency, Blanche continued to hold court, where she resolved the large and small issues arising in one of the wealthiest and most powerful principalities of the realm. Although she was successful in pressing the king and the popes to support her son’s succession, it was only after she personally led armed forces against the rebel coalition that she finally suppressed the rebellion in 1218. She left Thibaut IV not only his father’s pacified county but also her own inheritance of the kingdom of Navarre.
