René d'Anjou
Duke of Bar

 

René d'ANJOU (*1409, † 1480), nominative king of Naples, Sicily, Jerusalem, Majorque and Aragon, Duke of Anjou, Lorraine and Bar, marquis of Pont-à-Mousson, Count of Guise, Barcelone, Provence and Forcalquier, Lord of Loudun, Saumur, Angers, Tarascon, called "The good king René". Second son of Louis II of Anjou and Yolande of Aragon. Married 1° in 1420 Isabelle of Lorraine, 2° in 1454 Jeanne of Laval. Duke of Bar since 1423, he was the suzerain of the lords of Domrémy. He joined the Charles VII's party for the coronation in Reims. He fought with Jeanne d'Arc at Montépilloy and Paris.

The man of the month: August 2009

 

 

Coat of arms in 1429 : quarterly, 1st and 4th Azure fleurdelised Or a bordure Gules (Anjou), 2nd and 3rd Azure crusily and two barbels Or (Bar), overall an escutcheon Or a bend Gules with three allerions Argent (Lorraine).

 

 The Coat of Arms of René d'Anjou

 

Born in 1409 in Angers, René d'Anjou, Count de Guise, second son of the duke Louis II of Anjou was adopted by his maternal uncle, Louis, cardinal and duke of Bar. He wear a quartered coat of arms, with the arms of Anjou (Azure fleurdelised Or a bordure Gules) and of Bar (Azure crusily and two barbels Or).

 

After his marriage (October 24, 1420) with Isabelle, daughter of the duke Charles of Lorraine, he put overall an escutcheon Or a bend Gules with three allerions Argent. These are the coat-of-arms he wears as a duke of Bar (1423) and Lorraine (1431).

 

In 1434, after the death of his elder brother Louis III d'Anjou (dead in Calabria at the time of its ceaseless fights to recover the succession of the Angevin kings of Naples, Sicily and Hungary descendants of Charles d'Anjou, brother of Saint Louis), he received the duchy of Anjou, the county of Provence and the rights chimerical on Hungary, Naples, Sicily, and on the kingdom of Jerusalem "bought" in 1277 by Charles d'Anjou.

 

After the death of his wife, Isabelle of Lorraine, in 1453, he gives up the arms of the duchy of Lorraine which he had lost after his defeat and his capture at Bulgnéville (July 2, 1431) in front of the troops of his rival, the count of Vaudémont, Isabelle's cousin, supported by the duke of Burgundy.

 

Lastly, in 1466, he can cap a royal crown, as king of Aragon and Majorque which is given to him, as son of Yolande d'Aragon, daughter of king Jean Ier († 1395), by a part of the Aragonese nobility revolted against the nominal king, Jean II († 1479). He places overalls the arms of Aragon: Or 4 pals Gules.