Jeanne d'Albret
On 11 April 1572, Margaret was betrothed to Henry. Henry was a few months younger than Margaret, and their initial impressions of each other were favorable. In one of her letters to Henry, his mother Jeanne d'Albret, queen of Navarre, wrote about Margaret: "She has frankly owned to me the favourable impression which she has formed of you. With her beauty and wit, she exercises a great influence over the Queen-Mother and the King, and Messieurs her younger brothers." Jeanne d'Albret died in June 1572, two months after the engagement, and was succeeded on the throne by Henry, so that Margaret became queen of Navarre upon the day of her wedding.