Bianca di Navarra or Bianca I of Navarra or Bianca di Evreux was queen reigning in Navarre from 1425 to 1441; previously, after marriage, she was for seven years also queen consort of Sicily from 1402 to 1409 and regent; widowed, he married the future king of Aragon, Valencia, Sardinia, Corsica, Majorca and Sicily, count of Barcelona from 1458 to 1479, John II. From the Sicilian historiographers it is simply called the White Queen.
Third son of the king of Navarre, count of Évreux and duke of Nemours, Charles III called the Noble and of Eleonora Enriquez, second son of the king of Castile and Leon, Henry II of Trastamara, and of Giovanna Manuele.
On May 21, 1405, in Catania, he married, by proxy, Martino I said the Young, the only king of Sicily, since the death of Queen Maria di Sicilia (daughter of King Frederick III) in 1401. In December of that same year, after the two brothers had died between August and October, while the elder sister, Giovanna, was officially declared heir to the throne of Navarre, Bianca was recognized as second in the succession line to the throne.
Bianca reached Sicily, in the autumn of the aforesaid year and December 26, 1402 Bianca celebrated the actual marriage with Martino the Younger (eldest son of the king of Aragon Martino I the Elder and his first wife Maria de Luna.
Became Queen of Sicily, Bianca took possession, on July 17, 1404, of the Regal Chamber, due to the wife of the sovereign, consisting of the possessions of Syracuse, Paternò, Mineo, Vizzini, Lentini and Francavilla and in the medieval town of Randazzo.
When her husband, in the summer of 1408, at the request of his father, Martino I the Elder organized an army to regain Sardinia to the Aragonese, the young Bianca was appointed regent of the Kingdom of Sicily ("vicaria") and exercised real power with a certain pulse, fighting against some nobles who wanted to take advantage of the king's absence.
Martin the Younger arrived in Sardinia, in October 1408, and the judge of Arborea and viscount of Narbonne, William III marched towards Cagliari where the Aragonese army had its base. The armies clashed in Sanluri, July 4, 1409, where Martin won the battle and the allies of the sovereign, the Genoese had to leave the island and the court returned to being a vassal of Aragon; but Martino the Younger contracted malaria, died on July 25 and was buried in the cathedral of Cagliari.
After the death of Martin the Younger, his father, Martin I of Aragon, also became king of Sicily with the name of Martin II and confirmed his daughter-in-law, Bianca, as "vicar" of the kingdom, declaring her regent.
In Paris, also in 1409, Bianca became engaged to Ludovico di Baviera, the bearded man (1368-1447), the eldest son of Stephen III of Bavaria, duke of Bavaria-Ingolstadt and Taddea Visconti. We did not get to the wedding because the agreement was broken before the end of the year. In 1410, Bianca was promised to Edward III of Bar, son of Duke Robert I and Mary of France.
When, the following year, Martin I of Aragon died, the young Bianca found herself struggling with the mighty Bernardo Cabrera, count of Modica, who wanted to marry her to seize all of Sicily.
Two opposing parties were formed: that of Queen Bianca, with her faithful Sancio Riuz de Lihori, Antonio Moncada, Henry IV Red, Riccardo Filangieri and Vitale Valguarnera; the second led by the influential Cabrera, with Giovanni Montalto, Antonio Barresi and others.
In May of 1411 the queen stayed at the castle of Aidone and, protected by the niece count and "rational master" of the kingdom, Bartolomeo Gioieni, wrote some letters to his faithful.
In July 1413, at the death of her sister, Giovanna, Bianca also became heir to the throne of Navarre.
Even the marriage with Edward III of Bar did not go to port because the duke, in October 1415, was killed in the Battle of Azincourt.
Bianca, meanwhile, left Sicily in that same 1415 to return to Navarre where, being the eldest of the surviving daughters, on October 28, 1416, in Olite, her father, Charles III the Noble officially named her hereditary princess of Navarre.
After the agreement of November 5, 1419, Bianca, on December 5 of the same year, married by proxy, in Olite, the Duke of Peñafiel and future king of Aragon, Giovanni, second son of Ferdinando I. Giovanni went to Navarre to meeting Bianca and June 10, 1420, the wedding was celebrated in the cathedral of Pamplona.
On the death of his father, Charles III, in 1425, Bianca became Queen of Navarre [3], together with her husband Giovanni.
Queen Bianca and King John were crowned in Pamplona on May 15, 1429.
Bianca left the government in the hands of her consort, who in those years was involved in the internal affairs of Castile together with her brother, Enrico (they were called the infants of Aragon), and after the defeats suffered, in the period 1428-1429, Navarra had to ced to Castile some border areas.
After being in prison, John was exiled from Castile with Henry and the two followed their brother, King of Aragon, Alfonso V, in the Italian enterprise, where they were defeated and captured by the Genoese at the battle of Ponza, and then delivered to the Duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti.
On February 15, 1437, the king of France, Charles VII, granted to the sovereign the duchy of Nemours, which had been his father's.
Bianca died April 3, 1441, in Santa María la Real de Nieva, in Castile, where her husband Giovanni had returned to resume the civil war next to his brother Enrico against the constable of the kingdom, Álvaro de Luna, leaving the government of Navarre to his son major, Carlo. Bianca was buried in the church of the Nuestra Señora de la Soterraña monastery of Santa María la Real de Nieva.
On the death of Bianca, John II, following the testamentary dispositions of his wife (in which, according to the wishes of his father, Charles III the Nobleman, he asserted that his son Charles should not take the royal title until his father John remained alive ( he usurped the Navarrese throne to his son Charles, leaving him only the rank of governor.This situation between father and son led to the civil war, which began in 1451.